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People assume that science is a very cold sort of profession, whereas writing novels is a warm and fuzzy intuitive thing. But in fact, they are not at all different.

All writers are going to have to learn more about science, because it's such an interesting part of their environment.

I'm dependent on writing for a living, so really it's to my advantage to understand how the creative process works. One of the problems is, when you start to do that, in effect you're going to have to step off the edge of science and rationality.

Over the last 25 years, since a lot of science writing became accessible to layman, I've become quite a consumer of science. As a child, I wasn't streamed into science, and I regret that now.

You need a certain amount of nerve to be a writer.

It seems to me that many writers, by virtue of environments of culture, art and education, slip into writing because of their environments.

I think that all research scientists think of themselves as belonging to a grand tradition, building on work that has been worked on since the very beginning of science itself. Whereas I'm not sure writers think of themselves in the same way.

Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge.

A writer is what I am.