There was a terribly ghastly silence. There was a terribly ghastly noise. There was a terribly ghastly silence.

I am rarely happier than when spending entire day programming my computer to perform automatically a task that it would otherwise take me a good ten seconds to do by hand.

The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at and repair.

It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on earth has ever produced the expression "As pretty as an airport." Airports are ugly. Some are very ugly. Some attain a degree of ugliness that can only be the result of a special effort. This ugliness arises because airports are full of people who are tired, cross, and have just discovered that their luggage has landed in Murmansk (Murmansk airport is the only exception of this otherwise infallible rule), and architects have on the whole tried to reflect this in their designs.

I love to keep poking and prodding at it. I’ve thought about it so much over the years that that fascination is bound to spill over into my writing.

I have terrible periods of lack of confidence. I just don't believe I can do it and no evidence to the contrary will sway me from that view.

42 is a nice number that you can take home and introduce to your family.