Nobody ever forgets their first night in the bush. It's among the precious, meagre handful of life firsts that remain indelible.

Breakfast is everything. The beginning, the first thing. It is the mouthful that is the commitment to a new day, a continuing life.

The interesting adults are always the school failures, the weird ones, the losers, the malcontents, this isn’t wishful thinking. It’s the rule.

You either get the point of Africa or you don't. What draws me back year after year is that it's like seeing the world with the lid off.

I formally proposed. I'm a good Southern gentleman.

The truth and the facts aren't necessarily the same thing. Telling the truth is the object of all art; facts are what the unimaginative have instead of ideas.

A lobster bisque ought to be the crowning glory of the potager. And this one was excellent. Silky as a gigolo's compliment and fishy as a chancellor's promise.

The reason that chefs become chefs is that they're not allowed into rooms with windows.

Science fiction is never about the future, in the same way history is rarely about the past: they're both parable formats for examining or commenting on the present.

Facts are what pedantic, dull people have instead of opinions.

Players aren't quite as mercenary as people make them out to be. Some of them are but some aren't.

I'm not a Pollyanna sort of kumbaya type.

How did that go?’ he asked. ‘Your first lengthy conversation with a girl your own age?’ ‘Fabulous,’ said Artemis, voice dripping with sarcasm. ‘We’re planning a June wedding.

It's really hard to even talk about the internet without seeming instantly corny.

I meant I’m not afraid of love being difficult. If it was easy, then everyone would find it.

This inability to engage in debate or handle disagreement is becoming the calling card of the left.

Without any kind of real ego on my part, I just thought, I'm going to approach the people I admire and see if they want to do something together.

People's attentions spans are getting shorter and shorter. I don't want to cater to that necessarily but, just for myself, it feels like more than 40 minutes of music is too much.

The lesson of the book is that the universe is governed by the laws of science.

Children are people, and they should have to reach to learn about things, to understand things, just as adults have to reach if they want to grow in mental stature.

When people are determined, they can overcome fate; when the will is unified, it can mobilize energy. Enlightened people do not even let nature put them in a set mold.