“I always knew that I wanted to work on my own material – something that would be more long-lasting than short-lived electronic transmissions.”

Except I’m aware that as a writer you can’t get away with as much writing for children as you can with adults.

To be most effective, flattery is always best applied with a trowel.

Then when the fugitive word was least expecting it I would suddenly turn the full blaze of my attention back onto it catching the culprit in the beam of my mental torch before it could sneak off again into the darkness.

One of the marks of a truly great mind, I had discovered, is the ability to feign stupidity on demand.

Although it is pleasant to think about poison at any season, there is something special about Christmas, and I found myself grinning.

Whenever I’m with other people, part of me shrinks a little. Only when I am alone can I fully enjoy my own company.

To be frivolous time-wasters, delighted in putting her favorite volumes into her grandchildren’s hands.

I had long ago discovered that when a word or formula refused to come to mind the best thing for it was to think of something else: tigers for instance or oatmeal.

And I had long ago become accustomed to being called ‘Ophelia Daphne Flavia, damn it.

It is not unknown for fathers with a brace of daughters to reel off their names in order of birth when summoning the youngest.

I was an early reader, and my grandmother, who as a child had been forbidden to read by a father who believed books.

I’m at that age where I watch such things with two minds.

My grandmother flew only once in her life, and that was the day she and her new husband ascended into the skies of Victorian London in the wicker basket of a hot-air balloon.

Compared with my life Cinderella was a spoiled brat.

I fling myself down on my back, throw my arms and legs out so that I look like an asterisk, and gaze at the sky.

TV and film taught me to think cinematically. Teaching others to edit, for example, provides a great deal of insight into the millions of ways in which given elements can be put together to tell a story.

Youth has many glories, but judgement is not one of them, and no amount of electronic amplification can turn a belch into an aria.

Ten years ago, it would have been impossible to imagine a Cockney singing group with a Southern Negro style and Indian and electronic music.

It’s the bane of both the news and sports businesses, both electronic and print.

they’ve got television and the electronic games that they can bury themselves in like ostriches. They don’t have to pay attention to what’s going on in the world around them.

Where are the young people today? Why are they allowing some of the things that are happening in their country? I am really upset about that. I feel that they are burying their heads in the sand of electronic games and television.

It is captivating, isn’t it? England has such a great scene of electronic music, and I think that was very prominent in Pusher, and the nightlife was the beat of the film.

Maybe one day there will finally be an education for electronic music.

Young people know they are being betrayed by he mass electronic media. It caricatures them, caricatures others.