SCIENCE: a way of finding things out and then making them work. Science explains what is happening around us the whole time. So does RELIGION, but science is better because it comes up with more understandable excuses when it's wrong.

Making money isn't something to be ashamed of. There's a feeling now that if you have money you must have got it by some kind of shady dealing or being an MP.

Evolution was far more thrilling to me than the biblical account. Who would not rather be a rising ape than a falling angel? To my juvenile eyes, Darwin was proved true every day. It doesn't take much to make us flip back into monkeys again.

It's an old magical principle - it's even filtered down into RPG systems - that magic, while taking a lot of effort, can be 'stored' - in a staff, for example. No doubt a wizard spends a little time each day charging up his staff, although you go blind if you do it too much, of course.

Either dragons should exist completely or fail to exist at all, he felt. A dragon only half-existing was worse than the extremes.

Experience has taught me that you feel better on a flight if you avoid chicken fat in plastic sauce.

There were two ways of looking at the world, but only one when you are starving.