My mother married again after my father's death - another Royal Air Force officer, and a very different kind of man. We went to Australia when I was eight or nine. We lived there for a couple of years, and then came back and lived in North Wales for the whole of my teenage years... I learned how to write poems quite a lot. I just had a good time reading and reading and reading. So that's where I did most of my growing up.

And among academicians, and among spirits. I found folly everywhere, but there were grains of wisdom in every stream of it. No doubt there was much more wisdom that I failed to recognize. Life is hard, Mr. Scoresby, but we cling to it all the same.

The way you speak of the characters in your story shows what you think of the values of conservatives‚ or evolution, for example. It shows where your moral center is. So you are in the message business whether you like it or not.

The crucifixion saved him [Jesus]. He never had to deal with the fact that the kingdom of God wasn't ever going to come. His disciples, of course, had to deal with it, and little by little they had to realize that it's a metaphorical thing. Well, that's not what Jesus meant. I'm fairly sure he meant it literally. But he must have been the most fascinating man.

You going to be a scientist when you grow up?” That sort of question deserved a blank stare, which it got.

Human beings can't see anything without wanting to destroy it. That's original sin. And I'm going to destroy it. Death is going to die.

My real purpose in telling middle-school students stories was to practice telling stories. And I practiced on the greatest model of storytelling we've got, which is "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey." I told those stories many, many times. And the way I would justify it to the head teacher if he came in or to any parents who complained was, look, I'm telling these great stories because they're part of our cultural heritage. I did believe that.