Louis de Bernires is in the direct line that runs through Dickens and Evelyn Waugh. . .he has only to look into his world, one senses, for it to rush into reality, colours and touch and taste.

I like feeling my way into different minds and experiences. It comes naturally and always has.

She didn't like to be talked about. Equally, she didn't like not to be talked about, when the high-minded chatter rushed on as though she was not there. There was no pleasing her, in fact. She had the grace, even at eleven, to know there was no pleasing her. She thought a lot, analytically, about other people's feelings, and had only just begun to realize that this was not usual, and not reciprocated.

No mere human can stand in a fire and not be consumed.

I don't think it is an easy thing to write and expect to be commercial, even if you are from Venus and a hermaphrodite.

Art does not exist for politics, or for instruction- it exists primarily for pleasure, or it is nothing.

You can understand a lot about yourself by working out which fairytale you use to present your world to yourself in.