“The greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places.”

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.

The prime function of the children’s book writer is to write a book that is so absorbing, exciting, funny, fast and beautiful that the child will fall in love with it.

Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him.

Books are like seeds. They can lie dormant for centuries and then flower in the most unpromising soil.

I’m wondering what to read next.

There is no friend as loyal as a book.

It is far better to be silent than merely to increase the quantity of bad books.

I am too fond of reading books to care to write them.

A novel must show how the world truly is. Somehow, reveals the true source of our actions.

There are more valid facts and details in works of art than there are in history books.