I'd always somehow felt slightly as if I'd been born in the wrong country.

I have quite a decent constitution in spite of all my abuse of it and my advanced years. I'm still quite robust.

Evolution is, as well as smarter than we are, infinitely more callous and cruel, and also capricious.

One has children in the expectation of dying before them. In fact, you want to make damn sure you die before them, just as you plant a tree or build a house knowing, hoping that it will outlive you. That's how the human species has done as well as it has.

It's surprising to me how many of my friends send Christmas cards, or holiday cards, including my atheist and secular friends.

I'm not that keen on the idea of being unconscious.

The press is still investing itself, it seems to me, in a sort of cynicism. It comes out better for them if they can predict hard times, bogging down, sniping, attrition.