And the pleasures and rewards of the intellect are inseparable from angst, uncertainty, conflict and even despair.

The gods that we've made are exactly the gods you'd expect to be made by a species that's about half a chromosome away from being chimpanzee.

[P]erhaps you notice how the denial is so often the preface to the justification.

She's got no charisma of any kind [but] I can imagine her being mildly useful to a low-rank porn director.

Authors who moan with praise for their editors always seem to reek slightly of the Stockholm syndrome.

It ought to be an offense to be excruciating and unfunny in circumstances where your audience is almost morally obliged to enthuse.

I don't think the war in Afghanistan was ruthlessly enough waged.