“I began to realize how important it was to be an enthusiast in life.”

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.

Never do anything by halves if you want to get away with it. Be outrageous. Go the whole hog. Make sure everything you do is so completely crazy it’s unbelievable.

Writing is mainly perspiration, not inspiration.

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’ve always said to myself that if a little pocket calculator can do it why shouldn’t I?

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

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.

Real love begins where nothing is expected in return.

Learning is the beginning of wealth. Learning is the beginning of health. Learning is the beginning of spirituality. Searching and learning is where the miracle process all begins.

Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is by far the best ending for one.

When your heart is broken, your boats are burned: nothing matters any more. It is the end of happiness and the beginning of peace.

We cannot start over, but we can begin now, and make a new beginning.

You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

The paradox of education is precisely this – that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated.