What I imagined doesn't require anti-gravity beams or anything too spectacular, just advances in analysing different genes, finding out what they can do and recombining them.

At the moment we seem to be heading in the opposite direction. However you dress it up, it's pretty obvious who is being affected by the government's cuts.

I do always know where I'm going in my books. I know the endpoint. I've written only two thousand words of my next novel but I know what the ending will be already.

When I start writing for the day, I usually read aloud the chapter I'm working on. It gets me into it and illuminates mistakes. I'm very rhythm conscious and I do enjoy repetition.

New technologies are a good thing but we must consider how they will impact on us so that, when they become achievable, they aren't allowed to run amok.

I debated whether or not to pin the setting down to a particular date but in the end I decided to leave things vague. It depends how fast technology improves.

How do you even speak of, let alone propose regulation of, [any] category [so] full of internal contradictions? . . . Maybe, like so many other things, it is a language problem.

Vulnerability is about showing up and being seen. It's tough to do that when we're terrified about what people might see or think.

I'm not an urban person.

I feel like a novice, just as I felt before I knew anything of the keyboard. It is far too original, and I shall end up not being able to learn it myself.

I have been very clear about the necessity for doing whatever is required to move the VA into the 21st century.

Motivation is not a thinking word; it's a feeling word.

We are called upon not to be successful, but to be faithful.

There are just two rules of governance in a free society: Mind your own business. Keep your hands to yourself.

Your problem is you're... too busy holding onto your unworthiness.

Don't believe in success. Rather than that, believe in the amount of your effort and passion.