When young I did my best to undo that bit of the British Empire I found myself in: that is, old Southern Rhodesia.

I am increasingly afflicted by vertigo where words mean nothing

In Shanghai, I saw great contrasts. On one street there would be impressive shops selling copies of the latest word in glamorous European fashion, and around the corner on a back street there were poor families crammed into one room with a naked light bulb. One evening I heard a Chinese family singing "Happy Birthday." It was weird. You would have thought that they'd have their own happy birthday song. Every dominant society in the world - whether it's French or British or American - imposes its culture on less developed societies.

Things are not quite so simple always as black and white.

It is the mark of great people to treat trifles as trifles and important matters as important.

What I did have, which others perhaps didn't, was a capacity for sticking at it, which really is the point, not the talent at all. You have to stick at it.

Space or science fiction has become a dialect for our time.