England was full of words I'd never heard before - streaky bacon, short back and sides, Belisha beacon, serviettes, high tea, ice-cream cornet.

I love everything about motels. I can't help myself. I still get excited every time I slip a key into a motel room door and fling it open.

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.

I don't know whether I'm misanthropic. It seems to me I'm constantly disappointed. I'm very easily disappointed. Disappointed in the things that people do; disappointed in the things that people construct. I want things to be better all the time.

Everything seems to be designed for the benefit of the automobile and not the benefit of the human being.

I understand cricket - what's going on, the scoring - but I can't understand why.

Des Moines is like your typical American city; it's just these concentric circles of malls, built outward from the city.