The problem with allowing God a role in the history of life is not that science would cease but rather that scientists would have to acknowledge the existence of something important which is outside the boundaries of natural science.

The science of booby-trapping has taken a good deal of the fun out of following hot on the enemy's heels.

Evolutionary naturalism takes the inherent limitations of science and turns them into a devastating philosophical weapon: because science is our only real way of knowing anything what science cannot know cannot be real.

I told my father I had to try political science for a year. He thought I was throwing my life away.

We sat around on a hotel balcony with a bottle of wine and tried to figure out how you would go about blowing up a planet. That's the kind of conversations science fiction writers have when they get together. We don't talk about football or anything like that.

Growing up in the '70s and '80s science fiction and especially fantasy had such a stigma attached to them. I felt so punished and exiled for being devoted to these things.

The march of science and technology does not imply growing intellectual complexity in the lives of most people. It often means the opposite.

I was always depressed growing up. There wasn't a reason for it I just was. I was sad and morose. I cried a lot I wrote a lot and I read a lot and that was how I dealt with it.

What's sad is that there is an addictive quality to that to believing your own hype to allowing yourself to become validated by others and no longer by yourself. That's the danger of celebrity.

Women are reputed never to be disgusted. The sad fact is that they often are but not with men following the lead of men they are most often disgusted with themselves.

You get used to sadness growing up in the mountains I guess.

I get some of my ideas from watching my three daughters but most of them come from my own memories of growing up. I can remember how romantic I was not just about love but romance in the classic sense - the romantic ideals: of honor and truth of loyalty sacrifice and fairness. Those were the elements that made a story satisfying to me.

What Romantic terminology called genius or talent or inspiration is nothing other than finding the right road empirically following one's nose taking shortcuts.

The Romantic poets were the prototype ramblers and I've often found myself following in their footsteps - although perhaps not all of their footsteps since a typical walk for Samuel T. Coleridge might last two days and cover 145km.

Being popular comes when you have everything. But to be liked it means that you must be treating people with respect and you must be showing kindness toward them.

Status anxiety definitely exists at a political level. Many Iraqis were annoyed with the US essentially for reasons of status: for not showing them respect for humiliating them.

If anyone asks for your autograph they're showing you respect and give it back to them.

I really only respect the Arab culture. I ain't really trying to pay no attention to ya know these little people in political positions and executive positions that ain't Arab culture oriented people because a lot of the times what are you really showing all of this concern for?

I could speak Spanish fluently growing up but I'm so out of practice and I have such a tremendous respect for songwriting in the Spanish language.

'Metals' has partly been about me regaining my self respect and I feel like I'm growing the muscles I want to grow again.

I remember the evacuee children from towns and cities throwing stones at the farm animals. When we explained that if you did that you wouldn't have any milk meat or eggs they soon learned to respect the animals.

Growing up in northern California has had a big influence on my love and respect for the outdoors. When I lived in Oakland we would think nothing of driving to Half Moon Bay and Santa Cruz one day and then driving to the foothills of the Sierras the next day.

We shall listen not lecture learn not threaten. We will enhance our safety by earning the respect of others and showing respect for them. In short our foreign policy will rest on the traditional American values of restraint and empathy not on military might.

Against my will in the course of my travels the belief that everything worth knowing was known at Cambridge gradually wore off. In this respect my travels were very useful to me.