Fifty-five crystal spheres geared to God's crankshaft is my idea of a satisfying universe. I can't think of anything more trivial than quarks, quasars, big bangs and black holes.

I will take his secret to the grave, telling people I meet on the way.

The truth is always a compound of two half- truths, and you never reach it, because there is always something more to say.

We're better at predicting events at the edge of the galaxy or inside the nucleus of an atom than whether it'll rain on auntie's garden party three Sundays from now.

I don't keep a diary and I throw away nearly all the paper I might have kept. I don't keep an archive. There's something worrying about my make-up that I try to leave no trace of myself apart from my plays.

Act first! The ideas will follow, and if not - well, it's progress

It takes character to withstand the rigours of indolence.