Curiosity takes ignorance seriously - and is confident enough to admit when it's in the dark. It is aware of not knowing. And then it sets out to do something about it.

One of the better guarantors of ending up in a good relationship: an advanced capacity to be alone.

In Britain, because I live here, I can also run into problems of envy and competition. But all this is just in a day's work for a writer. You can't put stuff out there without someone calling you a complete fool. Oh, well.

I feel that the great challenge of our time is the communication of ideas.

We read the weird tales in newspapers to crowd out the even weirder stuff inside us.

to design means forcing ourselves to unlearn what we believe we already know, patiently to take apart the mechanisms behind our reflexes and to acknowledge the mystery and stupefying complexity of everyday gestures like switching off a light of turning on a tap

What is fascinating about marriage is why anyone wants to get married.