"I was one those kids who had books on them. Before weddings, Bar Mitzvahs, funerals and anything else where you're actually meant to not be reading, my family would frisk me and take the book away. If they didn't find it by this point in the procedure, I would be sitting over in that corner completely unnoticed just reading my book."

"'Doctor Who' was the first mythology that I learned, before ever I ran into Greek or Roman or Egyptian mythologies."

"Sometimes the best way to learn something is by doing it wrong and looking at what you did."

"I've never known anyone who was what he or she seemed; or at least, was only what he or she seemed. People carry worlds within them."

"I have encouraged my kids to eat well from day one. I add flavor - herbs and spices - to everything because I don't want them getting used to starchy, bland food. I also want them to experiment - they don't have to love everything, but they do have to try it."

"It is a humble truth that the universe speaks in the silent dialect of universal natural laws — an essential principle for the reflective life."

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."

"Good science fiction is intelligent. It asks big questions that are on people's minds. It's not impossible. It has some sort of root in the abstract."