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Perhaps believing in good design is like believing in God, it makes you an optimist.

The illusion of purpose and design is perhaps the most pervasive illusion about nature that science has to confront on a daily basis.

I believe in innovation and that the way you get innovation is you fund research and you learn the basic facts.

I divide my time equally between teaching and research.

My sense of designing is a mix of intuition and intellectual control.

For the traditional fantasies, a lot more of my research comes from reading rather than doing. I like my worlds to feel real, so I do a lot of world building research.

Creativity requires input, and that's what research is. You're gathering material with which to build.

As a rule, I am lazy and prefer to avoid anything resembling work, and research feels like work, as opposed to my strong suit, which is sitting around making things up.

When I design something, I think of it as a gift to somebody else.

I have always focused on basic research, motivated by a desire to understand the world.