The definition of a page-turner really aught to be that this page is so good, you can't bear to leave it behind, but then the next page is there and it might be just as amazing as this one.

That's the wonderful thing with nerds: they're enthusiasts. Not having a life means you get to love things with a passion and nobody bothers you about it.

Our response to the world is essentially one of wonder, of confronting the mysterious with a sense, not of being small, or insignificant, but of being part of a rich and complex narrative.

All you have to do is choose the right day, the right weather, and you come upon a hidden place in the morning light where time stopped long before you were born

The trick and the beauty of language is that it seems to order the whole universe, misleading us into believing that we live in sight of a rational space, a possible harmony.

As I child, I came to this idea with a horrified fascination. Once upon a time, I wasn’t here. Before that, my parents weren’t here. And before that…

If the components of the body were organs and veins and cells, then the components of thought and language were words and grammar.

Poetry stands or falls by its music.

My poems tend to be more celebratory and lyrical, and the novels so far pretty dark. Poetry doesn't seem to me to be an appropriate tool for exploring that.

With fiction, I tend to get to my desk and start writing. Poetry I write in my head, often while walking, so that my poems have an organic quality, hopefully.

I realised I'd spent a lot of time in my poetry trying to find a way of talking about that whereof we cannot speak.

Religion is a set of rituals.

Your relationship with God is tested by your relationship with His people

I would far rather have two or three lilies of the valley gathered for me by a person I like, than the most expensive bouquet that could be bought!

Scientists are those who change facts

The greatest thing that science teaches you is the law of unintended consequences.

In America, there might be better gastronomic destinations than New Orleans, but there is no place more uniquely wonderful.

If we do not hang together, we shall surely hang separately.

The floating vapour is just as true an illustration of the law of gravity as the falling avalanche.

Buy a $100 US bond and frame it to teach your children about inflation by watching the US bond value diminish to almost nothing over the next 20 years.

I'm not a role model to my kids. They're a role model to me.