I certainly saw science as a kind of calling, and one with as much legitimacy as a religious calling.

If we have isolated individuals able to inflict enormous harm, imagine what a single lunatic can do with a nuclear weapon. I think the whole base of civil society is at risk.

Although I am a public figure, I'm still a little shy. I don't think my own personality is important. I prefer to keep some small dosage of privacy.

To have the recognition of your colleagues is great. The public attention is a mixed blessing.

I learned the hard way how desperately primitive is the technology we have for monitoring the health of someone with a chronic illness.

Facebook is like the Internet: a large company and an application. Bitcoin is a protocol for decentralisation, so you could build a decentralised company on top of it, a stock market. It's an Internet of ownership, so it's not quite a direct comparison.

Apparent contradictions between religion and science often have been the basis of bitter controversy. Such differences are to be expected as long as human understanding remains provisional and fragmentary.

When I think about myself as a writer, for sure I am a science fiction writer. The tools of extrapolation, the tools of anticipating the future - those are science fictional questions.