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.

Making English grammar conform to Latin rules is like asking people to play baseball using the rules of football.

The human diet consists of just nine plants: corn, rice, wheat, potatoes, cassava, sorghum, millet, beans, barley, rye and oats.

Most big companies don't like you very much, except hotels, airlines and Microsoft, which don't like you at all.

Physicists are atoms' way of thinking about atoms.

It is always quietly thrilling to find yourself looking at a world you know well but have never seen from such an angle before.

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.