We are so used to the notion of our own inevitability as life's dominant species that it is hard to grasp that we are here only because of timely extraterrestrial bangs and other random flukes. The one thing we have in common with all other living things is that for nearly four billions years our ancestors have managed to slip through a series of closing doors every time we needed them to.

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

I don't know whether I'm misanthropic. It seems to me I'm constantly disappointed. I'm very easily disappointed.

The tearoom lady called me love. All the shop ladies called me love and most of the men called me mate. I hadn't been here twelve hours and already they loved me.

There is something about the momentum of travel that makes you want to just keep moving, to never stop.

The great failure in education, much of the time, is the lack of excitement and stimulus

I love the feeling of being anonymous in a city I've never been before.