“Fairy tales have always got to have something a bit scary for children – as long as you make them laugh as well.”

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.

Me is the only one what won’t be gobbled up because giants is never eating giants.

Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.