Sometimes you have to trust grownups, perhaps more so when they are not there to actually supervise you.

Over to my left is the big grey wall in front of the church. Are we the Thoughts of God? a poster asks. No, I realise. It's the reverse.

Living for ever would be like marrying yourself, with no possibility of a divorce.

One minute I was playing chess and doing maths all the time, the next I had been rerouted into more 'normal' girls' activities: reading, writing stories and worrying about my clothes.

In some ways I'm a frustrated scientist or mathematician. The amount of times I've thought I'd go back to university and do theoretical physics because I like the big questions, but really I know now that that's not quite me. What's me is to do it in novels.

I wonder if the reason I tend to say yes to everything is because I deeply believe that I can survive anything.

But I quite like the way you can talk about science without necessarily using mathematics, but using metaphors instead.