Futurists get to a certain age and, as one does, they suddenly recognize their own mortality.

Television has - particularly at the HBO level in the United States - become a completely new genre. Something like Deadwood or The Wire is a whole new thing - there was no equivalent to that medium before. It's like a new way of telling stories.

I can't imagine writing a book without some strong female characters, unless that was a demand of the setting. I actually tend to suspect that in real life, there have always been very strong female characters, but at certain stages of society, they've been asked to cool it.

The future has already arrived. It's just not evenly distributed yet.

I like the idea of people who've had some success in one form secretly wanting to be something else; I have some of that myself. I look for it in other people who've established themselves in some particular art form, and then you find out that they really would like to design running shoes, or edit literary magazines or something.

I've always been interested in people who aren't from anywhere in particular. I think it's all melting. This has been true for as long as I can remember in my adult life.

I don't much live my life as if I was living in a Raymond Chandler novel, which is probably a good thing.