All you ever were was a little bit of the universe, thinking to itself. Very specific; this bit, here, right now. All the rest was fantasy.

Something in your voice tells me we approach the question of remuneration.

Empathize with stupidity and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot.

Mr Blawke always reminded me of a heron; I'm not sure why. Something to do with a sense of rapacious stillness, perhaps, and also the aura of one who knows time is on his side.

There's an old Sysan saying that the soup of life is salty enough without adding tears to it.

Torture is such a slippery slope; as soon as you allow a society or any legal system to do that, almost instantly you get a situation where people are being tortured for very trivial reasons.

My point has always been that, ever since the Industrial Revolution, science fiction has been the most important genre there is.

I remember being shocked when I discovered some of my school pals didn't have books in their homes. I thought it was like not having oxygen, or hot water.

I am, as I have always been, of the opinion that while the niceties of normal moral constraints should be our guides, they must not be our masters.

I've always loved Scotland, and I'm not a huge fan of big cities, to be honest. I like them to dip into for a bit, but I'm not sure I would want to live in one again.

In theory, I work an eight-hour day and a five-day week which means I can socialise with my pals who mostly have normal jobs like teaching and computer programming.

Make your dreams bigger than your nightmares.

Remember the days when you let your child have some chocolate if he finished his cereal? Now, chocolate is one of the cereals.

Love is a delicate plant that needs constant tending and nurturing, and this cannot be done by snorting at the adored object like a gas explosion and calling her friends lice.

Love and marriage are completely unrelated enterprises. Marriage bears as little resemblance to love as competing in the Olympics does to your afternoon jog.

I want to wake up with you every morning and fall asleep beside you each night.

My original goal was just to do stand-up but then I became interested in films - writing a film, shooting one someday, and getting to act in them.

Stay triumphant, keep on living. Stay on your toes, get off the ropes. Don't let 'em ever count you out.

Look, that homeless guy is sleeping on my face. New York really is where dreams come true.

It was autumn, the springtime of death.