I knew what infinity was. Being a previous art student, I knew about some art concepts.

The morning time is also a time when I look at what I did yesterday. That's often a jumping-off point for today.

I had read [Charles] Dickens's novels were often published serially. I thought it would be fun to write a book, just sitting down and writing a chapter every day, not knowing what would happen next. So that's how I wrote the first draft. And then of course I had to go back and make sure everything worked and change things.

I know if I did that [career as painter] all the time I would get tired of it.

I don't think about it that much, but sometimes I am surprised by that. I sometimes wonder why I didn't turn out to be the kind of picture-book writer who has stuffed animals that go with their books. That would be okay with me.

With most of my books, there are some parts that pop up right away, and other parts I have to wait for.

Some of it just involved thinking about, for example, the different kinds of science, what chemistry is.