The doctrine of the immortality of the soul has more threat than comfort.

Excuses change nothing, but make everyone feel better.

Cure for an obsession: get another one.

Moo may represent an idea, but only the cow knows.

Living alone makes it harder to find someone to blame.

Only the broken-hearted know the truth about love.

Human society sustains itself by transforming nature into garbage.

In the game of love, the losers are more celebrated than the winners.

Every day begins with an act of courage and hope: getting out of bed.

Procrastination makes easy things hard, hard things harder.

I write with a sense of my future readers being ever on the verge of setting down the book and pronouncing it a bore. Fear and insecurity are great motivators.

Meteorite hunting is not for wimps. The best places to look are also the coldest and windiest. You need very old ice, and you need wind, lots of it, strong and unrelenting. Antarctica fits the bill.

If ergonomists have their way, future products won't be built for some hypothetical average person but will conform to the biomechanical needs of whatever particular human body happens to come into contact with them.

It seems odd to think of tasting without any perceptive experience, but you are doing it right now. Humans have taste receptor cells in the gut, the voice box, the upper esophagus. But only the tongue's receptors report to the brain.

Day by day, I'm kind of a bore.

I'm drawn to the taboos that surround the human body. I find it fascinating that we are repelled by many of the acts and processes that keep us alive.

If I couldn't use food or love to define contentment, I would use reading.

Flatulence peaks twice a day... five hours after lunch and five hours after dinner.

When someone tells me, 'Oh, we have so many problems on Earth; space exploration costs too much money,' I say, 'I absolutely agree with you. But I still hope we do it.'

I've always been a bit of a space geek. I wrote an article years ago about the neutral buoyancy tank, which is this biblically sized pool where they train astronauts. And it was just the coolest thing.

Follow your instincts. Do the kind of writing you love to do and do best. 'Stiff' was an oddball book - I mean, a funny book about cadavers? - and I worried that it would be too unconventional. In the end, that's what has made it a success, I think.

I rarely listen to music while writing. I wish I could, but it distracts me.

The Internet is a boon for hypochondriacs like me.

For the most part, if somebody approaches me and says, 'I'd like to interview you,' who am I to say no, when I spend all my days going, 'Hello, you don't know me. I'd like to ask you some questions. Do you have a little time?'