Maybe it wasn't anything remotely to do with religion, mysticism or metaphilosophy after all; maybe it was more banal; maybe it was just...accounting.

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.

What a tribute this is to art

Use your wish, ” I whisper to Aladdin, opening my eyes. “Please.”“If I do, ” he replies softly, “I’ll lose you.

A sense of a wider meaning to one's existence is what raises a man beyond mere getting and spending. If he lacks this sense, he is lost and miserable.

One must learn to be grateful for one's own findings.

Nothing, including human suffering, happens by chance.

I like writing about friends.

One of the greatest fruits of obedience is bold confidence in prayer.

Originality is not doing something no one else has ever done, but doing what has been done countless times with new life, new breath.

When I was a child, I thought as a child. But now I have put away childish things. ... I must be scientific.

My biggest complaint with tights is that they do not accommodate skinny-ankled people like myself.