I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day.
This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in — an interesting hole I find myself in — fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must ha...
Beauty doesn't have to be anything. What's a vase about? What's a sunset or a flower about? What, for that matter, is Mozart's Twenty-third Piano Concerto ?
There's always a moment when you start to fall out of love, whether it's with a person or an idea or a cause, even if it's one you only narrate to yourself years after the event: a tiny thing, a wrong word, a false note, which means that things can n...
I have terrible periods of lack of confidence. I just don't believe I can do it and no evidence to the contrary will sway me from that view.
My favourite piece of information is that Branwell Brontë, brother of Emily and Charlotte, died standing up leaning against a mantle piece, in order to prove it could be done. This is not quite true, in fact. My absolute favourite piece of informati...
All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others.
I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.
Why?' is always the most difficult question to answer. You know where you are when someone asks you 'What's the time?' or 'When was the battle of 1066?' or 'How do these seatbelts work that go tight when you slam the brakes on, Daddy?' The answers ar...
We are stuck with technology when what we really want is just stuff that works.
For Children: You will need to know the difference between Friday and a fried egg. It's quite a simple difference, but an important one. Friday comes at the end of the week, whereas a fried egg comes out of a chicken. Like most things, of course, it ...
People often ask where I get my ideas from, sometimes as often as eighty-seven times a day. This is a well-known hazard for writers, and the correct response to the question is first to breathe deeply, steady your heartbeat, fill your mind with peace...
A learning experience is one of those things that says, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.
I vaguely remember my schooldays. They were what was going on in the background while I was trying to listen to the Beatles.
