One of the things I’m proudest of is that today is a Friday, and hundreds of Gypsy bands will be playing for tips, and they will play a lot of my songs. I like the idea that because of that, some kid will have marmalade on his bread.

The one thing I’ll always hold my head up high about is that 32 years later, it’s been quite a ride – it’s been a pretty pure ride, a pretty honest ride, a pretty straight ride – we haven’t done things for ulterior motives or tried to do things for commercial gains or for this or for that, so I feel pretty proud of all of it.

It’s hard because I’m attached to so many of my roles for so many different reasons,” he says. “But I do have a special affinity with the role of Gollum because, not only was it an amazing character to play, but it spawned a huge change in direction of where I was going as an actor: working in the digital realm.

I’m very proud of that and I started a drug and substance abuse program in middle schools in New York to help the worst performing schools.

That is a difficult question to answer because I’ve worked in so many fields. I’ve worked in five different fields. Now which are the most important? In some ways, the development of the biological species concept, which I did not invent, but I certainly was the person that brought it to general knowledge. And the whole field of new systematics — I really am the one who developed it — was one of my major contributions. There’s another one, which is still not yet realized by almost anybody. I have done more, I believe, for the development of a philosophy of biology than any other person.

Well, this has changed in the course of my life. In my early career, my development of the so-called new systematics was the thing I was very proud of, and at the species level everybody followed my idea. The latest thing I’m most proud of that has not yet been fully appreciated by the philosophers is my development of the philosophy of biology.

No sir. I'm rather dismayed how many days I have to work on my willpower very strongly in order to get out of bed before 8 o'clock.…I write letters, I write manuscripts, in addition to the book that is in press I have two manuscripts that are going to be published some time this or next year, and I have a whole list of manuscripts that I would like to write.

One of the answers is that very often I see a statement made by somebody which clearly to me is wrong, and then I work out what is the real right answer, and this happens to me very often.

Now look here, young man. If you become a medical doctor you will never have a chance to go to the tropics, you will be far too busy.

Professor [Bernhard] Rensch influenced me a great deal because I talked with him about these matters and in his book he raised all the problems that would... or at least most of the problems that would occupy my mind in the later years.