I believe the collapse of the House of Windsor is tied in with the collapse of the Church of England.

I think I became a Catholic to annoy my father.

Fear of death has never played a large part in my consciousness - perhaps unimaginative of me.

Nearly all monster stories depend for their success on Jack killing the Giant, Beowulf or St. George slaying the Dragon, Harry Potter triumphing over the basilisk. That is their inner grammar, and the whole shape of the story leads towards it.

This book has been a catalogue of mistakes by politicians, moral and practical disasters which led to wars, enslavement and wretchedness on a scale which no previous age could have dreaded or dreamed of.

I think one of the very frightening things about the regime of the National Socialists is that it made people happy.

My belief has come about in large measure because of the lives and examples of people I have known - not the famous, not saints, but friends and relations who have lived, and faced death, in the light of the Resurrection story, or in the quiet acceptance that they have a future after they die.