I grew up amongst biologists.

The answers you get from literature depend on the questions you pose.

Sometimes reactions can be quite surprising: readers like things that you, the author, feel you've barely gotten away with; or they dislike one of the parts you secretly think is one of your little gems.

I suppose it's everyone's fate to be reduced to quaintness by those younger than themselves.

Reality simply consists of different points of view.

Plague has hung over human history. The biggest human extinction was after 1492 in North and South America when the mortality rate was 95 per cent, which is enormous. But again, I'm actually giving you grounds for optimism: There were enough to continue. The five per cent who made it through are what you need to survive a bottleneck, which we have been through before.

They will not let you have peace, they don't want you to have anything they don't have themselves.