My father was a forest entomologist, which means he was aware that spraying forests for spruce budworm was counterproductive in that it didn't really work, and it killed everything else in the forests, and it wasn't good for the people who were exposed to it, either. So he was an early proponent of not doing that, but, of course, nobody listened.

The world is being run by people my age, men my age, with falling-out hair and health worries, and it frightens me. When the leaders were older than me I could believe in their wisdom, I could believe they had transcended rage and malice and the need to be loved. Now I know better. I look at the faces in newspapers, in magazines, and wonder: what greeds, what furies drive them on?

Romance takes place in the middle distance. Romance is looking in at yourself through a window clouded with dew. Romance means leaving things out: where life grunts and shuffles, romance only sighs.

Science is a tool, and we invent tools to do things we want. It's a question of how those tools are used by people.

­Do back exercises. Pain is distracting.

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.

for me the novel is a social vehicle, it reflects society.