You need a certain amount of nerve to be a writer, an almost physical nerve, the kind you need to walk a log across a river.

Forgiving men is so much easier than forgiving women.

Some bioengineering is good, especially if it results in plants that are more drought-resistant or perennial food crops.

So that’s what art is, for the artist,” said Crake. “An empty drainpipe. An amplifier. A stab at getting laid.

There's a difference between describing and evoking something. You can describe something and be quite clinical about it. To evoke it, you call it up in the reader. That's what writers do when they're good.

Stupidity is the same as evil if you judge by the results.

Reading and writing, like everything else, improve with practice. And, of course, if there are no young readers and writers, there will shortly be no older ones. Literacy will be dead, and democracy - which many believe goes hand in hand with it - will be dead as well.