I'm not sure I can write about America for the same reason I'm not sure I can write about adults - I have no critical distance on either place.

Nowadays, I only review books I really like. It's cowardly, I know, but I figure it's not my job to make people unhappy. I'll leave that to the professionals.

I always think plot is what you fall back on if you can't write, to keep things going.

When I was at university, there was such a strong delineation between city kids and those who had grown up the suburbs. City kids were so at home in the world, in a way that suburban kids take years to catch up, if indeed they ever can.

My learning process is by eye alone; it's not at all scientific.

George Orwell's science-fiction classic 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' wasn't a failure because the future it predicted failed to come to pass. Rather, it was a resounding success because it helped us prevent that future.

Feynman once said, 'Science is imagination in a straitjacket.' It is ironic that in the case of quantum mechanics, the people without the straitjackets are generally the nuts.

David Sainsbury has been good for science and good for innovation in the U.K. He has been an outstanding science minister and shown extraordinary passion and commitment to his portfolio.