We're not lost. We're locationally challenged.

I don't think anyone wants a reader to be completely lost - certainly not to the point of giving up - but there's something to be said for a book that isn't instantly disposable, that rewards a second reading.

The people who don't like it tend to dislike it intensely. That's unfortunate, but not surprising when one deliberately goes against audience expectations.

We're not lost. We're locationally challenged.

Sometimes the reader will decide something else than the author's intent; this is certainly true of attempts to empirically decipher reality.

Naturally, the reader has access only to the events I show and the way I show them, but as has been said, there's generally a good deal of ambiguity in that presentation.

There are readers who want every point to be clearly and unambiguously set forth, and there are those who want to pry ideas and meanings out for themselves.

The cynical part of the answer is that I expect to see a good deal more space opera, set far enough in the future as to be disconnected from contemporary issues.

Well, it's an adventure story, and a Bildungsroman, of course, but there was also the intention to describe a culture that had been seen in rather narrow terms.

If I were to write Web now, it would be a much, much darker book.

I'm very happy that the New York Times has spoken well of my stuff; who wouldn't be? But it's not a choice I made.

At one point I intended to write precursor and sequel novels, about the establishment of the Web and its next evolution, but I am very unlikely to now; they would take place in a different universe.

The ideal, it seems to me, is to show things happening and allow the reader to decide what they mean.

The language fictional characters use is chosen for effect, at least if the author is concentrating.

People tell me they laughed hard enough to wake their spouses, that they've given away numerous copies to friends, and that it's the one Trek book they'll give to people they wouldn't expect to like others.

There are people who believe in an absolutely transparent prose; with every respect for clarity of expression, I don't.

Creating the fictional background for a game world isn't significantly different from creating a background for fiction.

Quantum physics is a bit of a passion of mine. It's extraordinary. There's a branch of mathematics that is based on lunacy, and that's wonderful.

Every poll about the Left, the Right, and happiness reveals that the farther left one goes, the less happy the person is likely to be.

For years, I have been harboring memories of my first major league game at a place named Ebbets Field in Brooklyn.

I loved drawing, but I just couldn't do it to the level that some of my friends could. That pulled me up unconsciously because I wanted to be like them, and I wanted to draw.

Yeah, I definitely want to find that right person and fall in love and have kids someday.

I was born in my parents' bedroom on January 16. The World Almanac says it was 1909. I say it was 1912. But what difference does it make as long as I feel 33?

I think America is going to have to think through whether it wants to uplift the political dialogue or advance an approach that divides and, frankly, can lead to violence.

If possible, be funny.

I'm an eternal realist and the success rate for being an actor is pretty low.

When I last looked, there weren't queues of eager guys under 40 hanging outside single ladies' doors begging them to give up work and have their babies. It takes two to tango and the same number, without medical help, to make a child.

Some people make sharp distinctions sort of between their recreational musings and their professional work. I don't make that distinction very much.

It is a risk to love. What if it doesn't work out? Ah, but what if it does.

There's a long way to fall when you pretend that you're so far away from the earth, far away from reality, floating in a bubble that's protected by fame or success. It's scary, and it's the thing I fear the most: to be swallowed up by that bubble. It can be poison to you, fame.

This is not a trial. This is a lynching. There is no law.

I really didn't know how people were going to react to 'Magic Mike' because there hasn't been a movie like it.

I'm okay with myself. I had times when I was 15 about 'Who I am?' and 'What am I?' and where I want to go, and that's behind me.

I believe in God, who made of one blood all nations that on earth do dwell. I believe that all men, black and brown and white, are brothers, varying through time and opportunity, in form and gift and feature, but differing in no essential particular, and alike in soul and the possibility of infinite development.

If you want to know how much I love and care for you, count the waves.

I have a very good life, so I have nothing to complain about. Sometimes, I just have existential angst.

I find the female tragedy of insecurity to be hilarious. We get obsessed over issues like the tiny skin tags on our backs or that we're fat. You read one line in a magazine and it sends you into a tailspin.

I'm thrilled we've got a new single out, as singles were the way I first got into music as a child.

Basically, if you want to have a computer system that could pass the Turing test, it as a machine is going to have to be able to self-reference and use its own experience and the sense data that it's taking in to basically create its own understanding of the world and use that as a reference point for all new sense data that's coming in to it.

I think sex is a very minor part of most romance novels.

There's always a Van der Graaf audience that wants to hear the band's sound. And totally fair enough. Why not? It's a band. You like the band, you like the band.