I always wanted to do a baseball book; I love baseball. The problem is that a very large part of my following is in non-baseball playing countries.

Perhaps it's my natural pessimism, but it seems that an awfully large part of travel these days is to see things while you still can.

I still enjoy traveling a lot. I mean, it amazes me that I still get excited in hotel rooms just to see what kind of shampoo they've left me.

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

Because we humans are big and clever enough to produce and utilize antibiotics and disinfectants, it is easy to convince ourselves that we have banished bacteria to the fringes of existence. Don't you believe it. Bacteria may not build cities or have interesting social lives, but they will be here when the Sun explodes. This is their planet, and we are on it only because they allow us to be.

Every dog on the face of the earth wants me dead.

Geologists are never at a loss for paperweights.