Aesthetic judgments, rather than abstract reasoning, guide and shape the process by which we all come to know what we know.

I have tried to be more flexible, but I always end up feeling more uncomfortable. Retaining a sense of control is really important. I like to do things in my own time, and in my own style, so an office with targets and bureaucracy just wouldn't work.

I do read a lot, and I think in recent years the ratio between the amount of non-fiction and fiction has tipped quite considerably. I did read fiction as a teenager as well, mostly because I was forced to read fiction, of course, to go through high school.

From 'Embracing the Wide Sky', I went to the States, to Canada and to different parts of Europe as well. I gave interviews in several languages.

My autism is a very mild form. It was diagnosed at the age of 25, partly because it wasn't diagnosable as a teenager (this is Asperger's syndrome, specifically). But there were certainly traits within that condition, within the autism spectrum in general, especially at the high functioning end, that I think are best looked at as pluses.

Moment by moment throughout our lifetime, our brains hum with the work of making meaning: weaving together many thousands of threads of information into all manner of thoughts, feelings, memories, and ideas.

There are estimated to be fewer that 50 prodigious savants worldwide. If we were brought together, it would be disappointing in the sense of us having different abilities. One thing that would make me feel united with them would be the sense of us having grown up in isolation.