“I’m actually the fourth generation in my family to have no practical use for the church, or God, or religion. My children continue this trend.”

Whether it’s the experiments on ‘MythBusters’ or my earlier work in special effects for movies

We chose a place all the way at the end of an industrial park.

I felt like I had kind of played it out, and I wanted to see what was next, and then came Mythbusters.

The difference between screwing around and science is writing it down.

Audiences of critical thinkers are my favorite kinds of audiences.

It’s sort of a mental attitude about critical thinking and curiosity.

Nearly every one of these – from R2D2 to Hellboy’s revolver – ends with the paint job. And it’s not just cosmetic.

The ‘Mythbusters’ crew, we monitor the Discovery boards, we look for the new ideas that are being forwarded on those boards, and we keep track of what’s going on, we keep updated.

Deadlines refine the mind. They remove variables like exotic materials and processes that take too long.

If I haven’t had any long term psychological side effects from all the things I’ve already done on this show, this isn’t gonna hurt much more.

it was actually mummified, skin and all – but in a fit of space-saving zeal, they actually cut off the head and they cut off the feet and they burned the rest in a bonfire.

I am incrementally a pessimist, but I see the international debate that Edward Snowden has engendered, and I think this is exactly where the discussion should be. So, I would say I’m more optimistic than pessimistic.

They’re not very good ideas, but at least they’re ideas!

It may not look pretty, but it gets the job done.

I’ve meditated extensively on my family, my future, my past actions and what did and didn’t work for me about them.

Sometimes my brain writes a check that reality can’t cash.

To take what there is in life and use it, without waiting forever in vain for the preconceived, to dig deep into the actual and get something out of that; this, doubtless, is the right way to live.

There’s a reason why there’s a problem with bodies, and it’s because you never actually get to see any normal versions of them.

We say that the sun is behind the clouds, but actually it is not the sun but the city from which we view it that is behind the clouds. If we realized that the sun is never behind the clouds we might have a different attitude toward the whole thing.

There are moments when the inner life actually ‘pays,’ when years of self-scrutiny, conducted for no ulterior motive, are suddenly of practical use.

We actually did perform it in front of all those thousands of people. And just beforehand, we had a little dress rehearsal, and there were all these famous wrestlers going around and watching as well. Terrifying.

When I was in college, I actually had them change the starting lineup to say ‘from Robbins, Illinois’ instead of ‘Chicago, Illinois.’

Sometimes people carry to such perfection the mask they have assumed that in due course they actually become the person they seem.

That, for me, actually is the most important thing about doing a period film is trying to make these people as lovable as they are back then.