I open with a clock striking to beget an awful attention in the audience - it also marks the time which is four o clock in the morning and saves a description of the rising sun and a great deal about gilding the eastern hemisphere.

I've been keeping a diary for thirty-three years and write in it every morning. Most of it's just whining but every so often there'll be something I can use later: a joke a description a quote. It's an invaluable aid when it comes to winning arguments. 'That's not what you said on February 3 1996 ' I'll say to someone.

Isn't one of your first exercises in learning how to communicate to write a description of how to tie your shoelaces? The point being that it's basically impossible to use text to show that.

Think about the comfortable feeling you have as you open your front door. That's but a hint of what we'll feel some day on arriving at the place our Father has lovingly and personally prepared for us in heaven. We will finally - and permanently - be 'at home' in a way that defies description.

I once had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalogue: no good in a bed but fine up against a wall.

Don't fear failure so much that you refuse to try new things. The saddest summary of a life contains three descriptions: could have might have and should have.

Myth is an attempt to narrate a whole human experience of which the purpose is too deep going too deep in the blood and soul for mental explanation or description.

Dreaming in public is an important part of our job description as science writers but there are bad dreams as well as good dreams. We're dreamers you see but we're also realists of a sort.