I do not think an enormous permanent underclass is a very good thing to have if you're attempting to operate something that at least pretends sometimes to be a democracy.

I've always assumed from the beginning that I had relatively few contemporaries among my readership. Not that I was consciously writing for a younger audience but that what I was doing interested a younger audience, or at least threatened them less.

I've been through the whole western world, and it seems to me that there's more retail floor space devoted to the sale of books than food! There's more retail floor space devoted to the sale of books than there's been in the entire history of humanity! It's grotesque!

I've been interested in autism since I've known about it, which is more or less since I've been writing.

The future is already upon us, it is just unevenly distributed.

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

I've gone to big stadium rock concerts at some artist's invitation, and there's this invariable, fascinating and rather sad situation of concentric circles of availability. There are Green Rooms within Green Rooms literally within Green Rooms. There are seven or eight degrees of exclusivity, and within each circle of exclusivity, everyone is so happy to be there, and they don't know that the next level exists.