I might be able to find out what happened 6,000 years ago but I will never know what happens 6,000 years in the future! And that is not fair, blast it.

We need to actually teach kids that books aren't like broccoli. You don't have to eat every bit on your plate. It's like secret adult's business. It's the secret we never, ever tell our children. No adult ever read a book because it's good for us. We read because it is fun.

I'd love to see a new form of social security ... everyone taught how to grow their own; fruit and nut trees planted along every street, parks planted out to edibles, every high rise with a roof garden, every school with at least one fruit tree for every kid enrolled.

I don't read like other people do - back and forth, across the page. I tend to scan a page at a time.

I've always found the world is the most extraordinarily fascinating place and the more data you get, the more you can actually put pieces into this jigsaw.

I do read very, very quickly. I do process data very quickly. And so I write very quickly. And it is embarrassing because there is a conception that the things that you do quickly are not done well. I think that's probably one of the reasons I don't like the idea of prolific.

One of my extraordinary regrets about my death is not so much that it's going to happen but simply that I'll never know what happens next.