Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
People like space. But they sometimes have been left out. People are much more open to that if you invite them in.
Sometimes people wonder why aeroplanes are so cheap and rockets are so expensive. Even the most superficial comparison shows one obvious difference: aeroplane engines use outside air to burn their fuel, while rockets have to carry their own oxidisers along.
I think, as journalists, we sometimes are afraid to enter into the emotional lives and the complications of the lives of the people we write about - we don't really have the space and the room to deal with those things. But as a novelist, that's precisely what you're writing about.
I used to get a sort of sociophobia, and I still get it sometimes these days when I'm in a confined space with too many people. It's not like I freak out or anything, it's just that I'm far more comfortable in my own company sometimes than being surrounded by one thousand strangers.