Trust your gut instinct over spreadsheets. There are too many variables in the real world that you simply can't put into a spreadsheet. Spreadsheets spit out results from your inexact assumptions and give you a false sense of security. In most cases your heart and gut are still your best guide.

And like I say I think we've got other cases other than Iraq. I do not think the problem of global proliferation of weapons technology of mass destruction is going to go away and that's why I think it is an urgent issue.

People are naming it the Third Wave the Information Age etc. but I would say those are basically technological descriptions and this next shift is not about technology - although obviously it will be influenced and in some cases expressed by technologies.

In some cases inventions prohibit innovation because we're so caught up in playing with the technology we forget about the fact that it was supposed to be important.

The battle of life is in most cases fought uphill and to win it without a struggle were perhaps to win it without honor. If there were no difficulties there would be no success if there were nothing to struggle for there would be nothing to be achieved.

It's kind of ironic that the two sports with the greatest characters boxing and horse racing have both been on the decline. In both cases it's for the lack of a suitable hero.

I have found that a smile and a stick will carry you through all right and in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred it is the smile that does the trick.

Predicting has a spotty record in science fiction. I've had some failures. On the other hand I also predicted the fall of the Berlin Wall and the rise of fundamentalist Islam... and I'm not happy to be right in all of those cases.

Except in very narrow cases where there's breakthrough science that needs patent production worrying about competitors is a waste of time. If you can't out iterate someone who is trying to copy you you're toast anyway.

While most of us know that we feel better after a good hearty laugh science in many cases is yet to prove why.