And this shows that sometimes people want to be stupid and they do not want to know the truth.

Indeed, I am repeatedly astonished by the number of really good writers who understand human beings so well on paper but don't know how to deal with them in real life.

I like having my back pressed against a wall and being made to work harder so I don't embarrass myself.

Siobhan said that when you are writing a book you have to include some descriptions of things. I said that I could take photographs and put them in the book. But she said the idea of a book was to describe things using words so that people could read them and make a picture in their own head.

Well, we're meant to be writing stories today.

I thought Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything was remarkable. Managing to be entertaining while still delivering all that hard science was a pretty good trick to pull off.

The secret of contentment lay in ignoring many things completely.