For we have seen the future – we have by now centuries of experience of the future – and we know it doesn’t work.

Whatever the truth about the Deliverer, she will remain in my mind as she was shown on that statue, and all the other statues and murals, songs and stories: riding, at the head of her own swift cavalry, with a growing migration behind her and a decadent, vulnerable, defenceless and rich continent ahead; and, floating bravely above her head and above her army, the black flag on which nothing is written.

The world has become one big grassy knoll, crawling with lone gunmen who think they’re the Warren Commission.

The real world is far too complex and unpredictable to make something like the idea of humanity controlling its own evolution or engineering itself – well, I wouldn’t say impossible but it should be approached with a degree of caution.

I enjoyed Old Man’s War immensely. A space war story with fast action, vivid characters, moral complexity and cool speculative physics, set in a future you almost want to live into, and a universe you sincerely hope you don’t live in already.

I’m a long-term optimist, and I don’t think the problems with our society are from being overly optimistic.

I don’t really believe in the Devil, but if the Devil is the Father of Lies, then he certainly invented the Internet.

The secret of becoming a writer is to write, write and keep on writing.

Hey, this is Europe. We took it from nobody; we won it from the bare soil that the ice left. The bones of our ancestors, and the stones of their works, are everywhere. Our liberties were won in wars and revolutions so terrible that we do not fear our governors: they fear us. Our children giggle and eat ice-cream in the palaces of past rulers. We snap our fingers at kings. We laugh at popes. When we have built up tyrants, we have brought them down. And we have nuclear ********* weapons.

I enjoyed Old Man's War immensely. A space war story with fast action, vivid characters, moral complexity and cool speculative physics, set in a future you almost want to live into, and a universe you sincerely hope you don't live in already.