Look at the sky. It’s not dark and black and without character. The black is, in fact deep blue. And over there: lighter blue and blowing through the blues and blackness the winds swirling through the air and then shining, burning, bursting through: the stars! And you see how they roar their light. Everywhere we look, the complex magic of nature blazes before our eyes.

I do send out information about my books. Very few people buy the books that way, but I always feel that if they want to know more about the process, they can get the information from my books.

No one likes it, apart from blind people, and I'm sure even they can sense it's profound ugliness as it passes by.

We project our ideas about ourselves into the heavens and call them ideas about God.

It's impossible to overvalue the importance of television - both in its serious and less serious functions. It's one of our most important ways of finding out the truth - and also of changing the world, and finding out what in the world needs changing. It's also an immense bringer of joy - I learnt how to laugh through television, and now my children and I, every day of every week, share the joy and stupidity of TV shows - they actually make us HAPPY

Except for a few small presses, most publishers are north of Ground Zero.

Most writers can write books faster than publishers can write checks.