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

But there was one other thing that the grown-ups also knew, and it was this: that however small the chance might be of striking lucky, the chance is there. The chance had to be there.

What a fortunate fellow I am, I kept telling myself. Nobody has ever had such a lovely time as this!

Some children are spoiled and it is not their fault, it is their parents.

To shipbrokers, coal was black gold.

The more risks you allow your children to make, the better they learn to look after themselves.

I’m right and you’re wrong, I’m big and you’re small, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Kindness – that simple word. To be kind – it covers everything, to my mind. If you’re kind that’s it.

Rainbow drops – suck them and you can spit in six different colours.

We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams.

I am only 8 years old, I told myself. No little boy of 8 has ever murdered anyone. It’s not possible.

When you’re writing, it’s rather like going on a very long walk.

The writer walks out of his workroom in a daze. He wants a drink. He needs it.

I am suspicious of both facility and speed.

We make realities out of our dreams and dreams out of our realities. We are the dreamers of the dream.

If the Good Lord intended for us to walk, he wouldn’t have invented rollar skates.

An autobiography is a book a person writes about his own life and it is usually full of all sorts of boring details.

My hair was slicked down with a part. But that was before I discovered the blow-dryer. Now I’m fabulous.

[Computing] is just a fabulous place for that, because it’s a place where you don’t have to be a Ph.D. or anything else. It’s a place where you can still be an artisan.

People are willing to pay you if you’re any good at all, and you have plenty of time for screwing around.

Things inspiring me – good melody, a great bass line, a fabulous voice… by which I mean someone who sounds great, rather than does pyrotechnics… and people playing really musically.

I once asked the most fabulous couple I know, Madonna and Guy Ritchie, how they kept things fresh despite having been married for almost seven months. ‘It’s a job, Al,’ Guy told me. ‘We work at it every day.’

I think the French girls are fabulous.

I was watching Monster’s Ball, which is a fabulous movie. It’s just a little gem: beautifully shot, and shot in a way I never would have done.

It’s not called being gay, it’s called being fabulous!