I want things to be better all the time. And I tend to get angry about that. Books are an opportunity to vent.

I grew up in Des Moines. My dad had a house full of books, things like P.G. Wodehouse books and 'Wuthering Heights' by Emily Bronte.

Scientists tend to be unappreciated in the world at large, but you can hardly overstate the importance of the work they do.

One of the brilliant things about Britain is the way you've managed to save old things but to keep using them - that they've not just become museums the way they do in the United States.

I have made a career of bumbling around places, stumbling on landmarks and generally being quite haphazard and shambolic about the way I go about things.

I have long known that it is part of God's plan for me to spend a little time with each of the most stupid people on earth.