Luckily for writers - and unluckily for history - every scientific idea creates human conflict.

I found a great book called 'Slang Through the Ages' by Jonathon Green. It's basically a thesaurus of historical slang, and had lots of great old uses.

When I finish a first draft, I often look back at first chapters I wrote and laugh at them. They're like pictures of yourself in middle school. You're embarrassed to see them.

The difference between being a part-time writer and a full-time writer is like the difference between dating someone and living with them. Some of the romance is gone, but you learn things you'd never know just by dating.

Because television doesn't offer the kind of budget that a movie offers, you've got to be a little more careful where you spend the money to put the fiction in science.

Bose and Einstein had triggered low-temperature experiments that have led to the discovery of new matter. I owe my work and my Nobel to them.

The crisis triggered a fertile period of scientific ferment and revolution in economic theory.

It's true that my research expertise is in biology: for example, the Ebola virus, the Marburg virus, and monkey pox, and not bacteriology as in the case of the anthrax organism. It's also true that I have never, ever worked with anthrax in my life. It's a separate field from the research I was performing at Fort Detrick.