I got to spend all of my time every day at work reading and editing papers about cutting-edge technical research and getting paid for it. Then I'd go home at night and turn what I learned into science fiction stories.

A lot of what the 'Culture' is about is a reaction to all the science fiction I was reading in my very early teens.

I began reading science fiction before I was 12 and started writing science fiction around the same time.

I do enjoy reading some science fiction.

Before I was reading science fiction I read Hemingway. Farewell to Arms was my first adult novel that said not everything ends well. It was one of those times where reading has meant a great deal to me in terms of my development - an insight came from that book.

The No Child Left Behind Program was an incentive to the schools to get their kids up to snuff on math and science and reading.

The Athanasian Creed is to me light and intelligible reading in comparison with much that now passes for science.

Now I'll read anytime anywhere. I love reading in front of the space heater. Isn't that a sad confession? But it's like my substitute for the roaring fireplace of yore.

I'm no romantic surfing California boy. I like reading writing philosophizing. Scheming. I've been doing some exploration of the inner space.

When I start to write words have become physical presence. It was to see if I could bring that private world to life that found its first expression through reading. I really dislike the romantic notion of the artist.