Well, many. I think Steinbeck, for example, was one of my favorites, Somerset Maugham, Hemingway. Quite a few.

Well my memory for names is absolutely appalling, but I know I did pass through a phase of books like King Solomon’s Mines. H. Rider Haggard was the author, and he wrote these great romantic adventure stories. I used to enjoy Georgette Heyer, in which the hero was usually a rather middle-aged gentleman, a very good sword fighter, with a beautiful young lady and all the rest of it. Great sword fighting and all highly romantic, adventurous activity. I used to find these things quite entertaining. I even passed through a phase when I quite enjoyed Western stories. Nowadays, I find them a little on the naive side but, for a period, I found the Western stories quite entertaining light reading. They are very romanticized, as we all know. Later on, I became much more interested in reading biographies, particularly about people who had made their mark in the community. I still enjoy reading books of that nature.

I believe that I had something called epigenetic imprinting, which I actually read about in a book called The Female Brain by Louann Brizendine. Not to self-promote too much, but I loved it so much I wrote a movie with a brilliant comedian named Neil Brennan and made the move this year. That’s how profoundly it changed my life, because I believe that the more we know about our neural brain wiring, the more freedom we have and the more patience we have with ourselves.

In history I decided to begin with Gibbon. Someone had told me that my father had read Gibbon with delight; that he knew whole pages of it by heart, and that it had greatly affected his style of speech and writing. So without more ado I set out upon the eight volumes of Dean Milman's edition of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire . I was immediately dominated both by the story and the style. All through the long glistening middle hours of the Indian day, from when we quitted stables till the evening shadows proclaimed the hour of Polo, I devoured Gibbon. I rode triumphantly through it from end to end and enjoyed it all.

I didn’t realise I’m the oldest ever! So I just about made it, huh? Because you can’t be dead and win … If you’re a winner of the National Inventors Hall of Fame you can be dead. I won that prize a couple of years ago and I was very proud of that. That is the most, I would say, most important prize I’ve won.

Wonder Why would say, 'Why is the sky blue?'…Then Wonder Why would tell you. I was fascinated, because I wanted to know how things worked ... that was my introduction to science.

This light is shining on you. Do you know that it's pushing you?…Most people don't. But it is, because it's got energy. The only thing is, it's so small you don't feel it.

I want to take Aline to a good restaurant, and we'll have a good meal,

I invented optical levitation.

I married her because she is smart!