My first rule of consumerism is never to buy anything you can't make your children carry.

Suddenly, in the space of a moment, I realized what it was that I loved about Britain - which is to say, all of it. Every last bit of it, good and bad - old churches, country lanes, people saying 'Mustn't grumble,' and 'I'm terribly sorry but,' people apologizing to ME when I conk them with a careless elbow, milk in bottles, beans on toast, haymaking in June, seaside piers, Ordnance Survey maps, tea and crumpets, summer showers and foggy winter evenings - every bit of it.

Life just wants to be; but it doesn't want to be much.

I can't think of anything that excites a greater sense of childlike wonder than to be in a country where you are ignorant of almost everything.

Not writing the same kind of book over and over again is to me the real pleasure of what I do.

From an evolutionary point of view, sex is really just a reward mechanism to encourage us to pass on our genetic material.

I really enjoy going to a library and spending the day doing research - to me that is the most pleasurable part of writing the science book.