Even the best of us have certain psychological mechanisms that can suddenly kick in and turn us into monsters.

They knew many things but had no idea why. And strangely this made them more, rather than less, certain that they were right.

I was trying to run something to ground that had come to my attention when I was working on the Baroque Cycle. That series, of course, was about the conflict between Newton and Leibniz. Leibniz developed a system of metaphysics called monadology, which looked pretty weird at the time and was promptly buried by Newtonian-style physics.

The story is everything, so it always begins with a story. Research is a kind of scaffolding built underneath the story as I go along. My enjoyment level varies, but in general, I'm writing about topics I find interesting, so I can't gripe too much.

The science fiction approach doesn't mean it's always about the future; it's an awareness that this is different.

The difference between stupid and intelligent people - and this is true whether or not they are well-educated - is that intelligent people can handle subtlety.

Well, all information looks like noise until you break the code.