I first had the idea of writing a popular book about the universe in 1982. My intention was partly to earn money to pay my daughter's school fees.

My first popular book, 'A Brief History of Time,' aroused a great deal of interest, but many found it difficult to understand.

All the evidence shows that God was actually quite a gambler, and the universe is a great casino, where dice are thrown, and roulette wheels spin on every occasion

I had not expected 'A Brief History of Time' to be a best seller. It was my first popular book and aroused a great deal of interest. Initially, many people found it difficult to understand. I therefore decided to try to write a new version that would be easier to follow.

In such a massive place as the cosmos we only have to look at ourselves for prove that extremely unlikely things can and do happen all the time

When asked, 'What did God do before he created the universe?' St. Augustine didn´t reply, 'he was preparing Hell for people who asked such questions.' Instead, he said that time was a property of the universe that God created, and that time did not exist before the beginning of the universe.