“Though my father was Norwegian, he always wrote his diaries in perfect English.”

You should never, never doubt something that no one is sure of.

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.

Let me be a poem freely hung in your diary. Like the moon, on the night sky.

The only really safe thing to do is to write a diary of where you’ve been, what time you went to bed, what you ate. If I wrote honestly about everything I think it’d be a disaster. It would cause a lot of trouble.

Please read my diary, look through my things and figure me out.

If you read, you’ll judge.

Painting is just another way of keeping a diary.

I paint the way some people write an autobiography. The paintings, finished or not, are the pages from my diary.

The reason for my starting a diary is that I have no real friend.

Writing in a diary is a really strange experience for someone like me.