Falling in love indicated that your genes were complementary to those of the loved one. It told you nothing about when your personalities and sexualities were compatible.

For us scientists, on the other wing, life is not quite so simple. Because we learn the unknown. Unlike, hah-hah, our esteemed friends the philosophers, who learn the unknowable.

I'm a long-term optimist, and I don't think the problems with our society are from being overly optimistic.

Naive' is not a word I associate with the Southern Rule. Superstitious, perhaps, traditional, yes, maddeningly set in their way, certainly but not naive." "I meant you are naive. They must have a hidden motive." "This is why I have no politics," said Darvin. "I can't think in those terms.

It had long been established in the Civil Worlds that public business was to be transparent, and personal business opaque; but it was as well recognised that the two would always have a turbulent interface, and that the clique, the caucus, and the conspiracy were as ineradicable features of civility as the council or the committee.

I don't really believe in the Devil, but if the Devil is the Father of Lies, then he certainly invented the Internet.

Science fiction made me aware of how big and strange the universe was, leaving aside the whole question of aliens.