Bernard Beckett
Bernard Beckett
Bernard Beckettis a New Zealand writer of fiction for young adults. His work includes novels and plays. Beckett has taught Drama, Mathematics and English at a number of high schools in the Wellington Region, and is currently teaching students at Hutt Valley High School in Lower Hutt...
NationalityNew Zealander
ProfessionWriter
fear vantage-point population
... from our vantage point it is now clear that the only thing the population had to fear was fear itself.
thinking littles way
Science is a little bit more than a wonderful way of modelling and predicting; its a wonderful technical abstraction. I think science is a really wonderful technical abstraction.
world belief ability
I cant see any great evidence that humans have any ability to access anything other than the material world. Beyond that, who knows, but theres no good evidence that would take me to any particular belief.
teenager writing mind
I write with teenagers in mind.
book ideas people
I just love the idea that people disappear into the story for a while. You grab a book, and you want to get back to it, and your life becomes a bit of an interruption. I would love readers to feel like that.
stupid hero world
This is always the problem with building heroes. To keep them pure, we must build them stupid. The world is built on compromise and uncertainty, and such a place is too complex for heroes to flourish.
memories consciousness feels
Consciousness is the feel of accessing memory.
optimism curiosity superstitions
Human spirit is the ability to face the uncertainty of the future with curiosity and optimism.
book waiting dying
In the end, living is defined by dying. Book- ended by oblivion, we are caught in the vice of terror, squeezed to bursting by the approaching end. Fear is ever-present, waiting to be called to the surface. Change brought fear, and fear brought destruction.
ideas together host
The only thing binding individuals together is ideas. Ideas mutate and spread; they change their hosts as much as their hosts change them.
mind trying faces
I try not to be surprised. Surprise is the public face of a mind that has been closed.
century god great limited machinery men mostly quest scientists uncover
Our world is limited by the machinery we carry. It's very different to the 18th and 19th century Enlightenment scientists who were mostly men of God and thought it was their quest to uncover God's great plan.
beyond books centre daniel fellowship high matt people research richard school science spent study wilson work year
I didn't study science beyond high school level, but I'd been reading a lot of science books by people like Richard Dawkins, Matt Ridley and Daniel Dennett. I also spent a year working on a fellowship in a research centre - the Allan Wilson Centre - where I got a hands-on look at their work sequencing DNA.
ability access beyond evidence good great humans material particular
I can't see any great evidence that humans have any ability to access anything other than the material world. Beyond that, who knows, but there's no good evidence that would take me to any particular belief.