Diana used to tell me she had a travel jinx, something I only really started to believe when the plane door fell off.

I'm bored," she said. "Learn how to tap-dance," he suggested, without turning around.

And then he'd tried to become an official Atheist and hadn't got the rock-hard self-satisfied strength of belief even for that.

The world always seems brighter when you've just made something that wasn't there before.

It's certainly not too late to change to the winning side. But you know, you also have the freedom to stay just where you are. That's what it means to be an American. That's the miracle of America. Freedom to believe means the freedom to believe the wrong thing, after all. Just as freedom of speech gives you the right to stay silent.

My theory on genre is that while there are people out there who believe that genre tells people what to read, actually I believe that genre exists as a marketing tool to tell you what to avoid.

If you have something specific and visible to fear, rather than something that could be anything, it is easier.