“A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom. He has no master except his own soul, and that, I am sure, is why he does it”

Nowadays you can go anywhere in the world in a few hours, and nothing is fabulous any more.

If you are going to get anywhere in life you have to read a lot of books.

Grown ups are complicated creatures, full of quirks and secrets.

Then suddenly, he was struck by a powerful but simple little truth, and it was this: that English grammar is governed by rules that are almost mathematical in their strictness!

Having power is not nearly as important as what you choose to do with it.

You chose books, I chose looks . Now see the difference?

When you’re old enough to write a book for children, by then you’ll have become a grown up and have lost all your jokeyness. Unless you’re an undeveloped adult and still have an enormous amount of childishness in you.

Candy is dandy but liqueur is quicker.

Give us strength, oh Lord, to let our children starve.

Do you know what breakfast cereal is made of? It’s made of all those little curly wooden shavings you find in pencil sharpeners!

Two rights don’t equal a left.

The reason I collect good ideas is because plots themselves are very difficult indeed to come by.

Fairy tales have always got to have something a bit scary for children – as long as you make them laugh as well.

We all have our moments of brilliance and glory.

Two hours of writing fiction leaves this writer completely drained. For those two hours he has been in a different place with totally different people.

Don’t gobblefunk around with words.

Institutionalized rejection of difference is an absolute necessity in a profit economy which needs outsiders as surplus people.

Reality is an absolute, existence is an absolute, a speck of dust is an absolute and so is a human life.

Vision creates faith and faith creates willpower. With faith there is no anxiety and no doubt – just absolute confidence in yourself.

I don’t think you should be too absolutist about what you play and what you don’t play.

Unless you have been to boarding-school when you are very young, it is absolutely impossible to appreciate the delights of living at home.

I may not have been sure about what really did interest me, but I was absolutely sure about what didn’t.

A business absolutely devoted to service will have only one worry about profits. They will be embarrassingly large.

When you sit courtside you absolutely know what comes with being on the floor and if you don’t know it’s on the back on the ticket itself that states the guidelines.