Doing what you do well is death. Your duty is to keep trying to do things that you don't do well, in the hope of learning.

I would be far more critical than any reviewer could be of my own work. So I simply don't read them.

I have this fantasy. I'm walking past a bookshop and I click my fingers and all my books go blank. So I can start again and get it right.

Why does the past seem so magical, so fraught, so luminous? At the time it was just, ugh, another boring bloody day. But, to look back on, it's a day full of miracles and light and extraordinary events. Why is this? What process do we apply to the past, to give it this vividness? I don't know.

Prayer is an act of love; words are not needed. Even if sickness distracts from thoughts, all that is needed is the will to love.

We are so accustomed to think of religion as a thing between individual men and God that we can hardly enter into the idea of a religion in which a whole nation in its national organisation appears as the religious unit.

EPA will set a national standard for greenhouse gas emissions that allows auto manufacturers to make cars that people both want and can afford - while still expanding environmental and safety benefits of newer cars.

I have to believe SF writers will continue to inspire the public to have faith in - to demand! - a future that is at least as big and bold as the past.