Music forecasts the past, recalls the future. Now and then the difference falls away, and in one simple gift of circling sound, the ear solves the scrambled cryptogram. One abiding rhythm, present and always, and you're free. But a few measures more, and the cloak of time closes back around you.

I really like science because it seems to be that place where you get the big picture, everything connects.

I think that if the novel's task is to describe where we find ourselves and how we live now, the novelist must take a good, hard look at the most central facts of contemporary life - technology and science.

I would say the flip side to my fascination with systems is a fascination with components. So many of my books are dialogues between little and big.

Only keep still, wait, and hear, and the world will open.

I keep a quotes journal - of every sentence that I've wanted to remember from my reading of the past 30 years.

The desire to live in our imagination is driven by this suspicion that we're disembodied sensibilities cobbled into our bodies. That idea has infused most of human thought since the very beginning.