If you're waiting for the perfect moment, you'll never write a thing because it will never arrive. I have no routine. I have no foolproof anything. There's nothing foolproof.

Science is not something that exists apart from human beings. It's one of the things we do as human beings, and we always have done science and technology in some form.

If a stranger taps you on the ass and says, "How's the little lady today!" you will probably cringe. But if he's an American, he's only being friendly.

I write as if I've lived a lot of things I haven't lived.

This afternoon held that special quality of mournful emptiness I've connected with late Sunday afternoons ever since childhood: the feeling of having nothing to do.

It made him feel invisible—not that he wanted to feel anything else.

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.