If the national mental illness of the United States is megalomania, that of Canada is paranoid schizophrenia.

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.

Those walls and bars are there for a reason,” said Crake. “Not to keep us out, but to keep them in. Mankind needs barriers in both cases.” “Them?” “Nature and God.” “I thought you didn’t believe in God,” said Jimmy. “I don’t believe in Nature either,” said Crake. “Or not with a capital N.

My parents were gardeners themselves, and perforce they used environmental techniques because it was during the war, and you didn't have the new sorts of chemicals.

It is my contention that the process of reading is part of the process of writing, the necessary completion without which writing can hardly be said to exist.

No mother is ever, completely, a child's idea of what a mother should be, and I suppose it works the other way around as well. But despite everything, we didn't do too badly by one another, we did as well as most.

A lot of the stuff Kafka said he thought was hilariously funny.