There was a 'magic rock' my mom would lift up, and under the rock was a bunch of bugs. Roly-poly bugs and worms. Somehow I thought that it was a magical world of insects, and I wanted to go there. It was the same impulse as 'Pikmin' - I wanted to go into that world.
I think Brad and I have fed off each other our whole careers, and to see him win like that just inspires me even more, ... If you can't get inspired by what he did, then you don't have a pulse because that was awesome the way he won that tournament.
I think bin Laden shares that view, and that is why I'm not repulsed by his embrace of my book, because that is one of my major themes.
A great war shall burst forth from fishes of steel. Machines of flying fire, lobsters, grasshoppers, mosquitoes. The mass attacks shall be repulsed in the woods, when no child in Germany shall obey any longer.
A family is too frail a vessel to contain the risks of all the warring impulses expressed when such a group meets on common ground.
The two impulses in travel are to get away from home, and the other is to pursue something - a landscape, people, an exotic place. Certainly finding a place that you like or discovering something unusual is a very sustaining thing in travel.
We plan to stay with this group over the next two years so that we can keep our fingers on the psychological pulse of this population.
I think there's a deep impulse in most humans to do creative stuff, whether that's music or art, photography or writing. Most people at some point in their life say they want to do something creative - they want to be an actor, a director, a writer, a poet, a painter or whatever.
That doesn't mean that it's wrong, because that impulse is in all of us. But we need to understand that finally, all that the bear wants to do is be left alone. He doesn't want to be our friend.
What I learned at that moment on the subway 30 years ago, staring at my blank passport, was this: If you have an impulse to do something, and it's not totally irresponsible, why not do it? It might just be the journey you've always needed.