In a funny way, nothing makes you feel more like a native of your own country than to live where nearly everyone is not.

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

To me, the greatest invention of my lifetime is the laptop computer and the fact that I can be working on a book and be in an airport lounge, in a hotel room, and continue working; I fire up my laptop, and I'm in exactly the same place I was when I left home - that, to me, is a miracle.

Hardly anyone ever leaves. This is because Des Moines is the most powerful hypnotic known to man. Outside town there is a big sign that says, WELCOME TO DES MOINES. THIS IS WHAT DEATH IS LIKE. There isn't really. I just made that up. But the place does get a grip on you.

You can be a scientist and believe in god: the two can go hand in hand.

Energy is liberated matter, matter is energy waiting to happen.

We forget just how painfully dim the world was before electricity. A candle, a good candle, provides barely a hundredth of the illumination of a single 100 watt light bulb.