During a long career in TV broadcasting, I spent a lot of time contributing to other people's creations.

The very best people are like that. They don't entangle you like flypaper.

As I stood outside in Cow Lane, it occurred to me that Heaven must be a place where the library is open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. No ... eight days a week.

If poisons were ponies, I'd put my money on cyanide.

Except I'm aware that as a writer you can't get away with as much writing for children as you can with adults. Children have much more finely tuned senses of justice, morals, and ethics. They are much more Platonic: children are symmetrical, before we begin to fragment them with our own nonsensical ideas and squelch their natural joy in knowledge.

Anyone who knew the word slattern was worth cultivating as a friend.

I had thought for years, probably 30 or 40 years, that it would be a lot of fun to try my hand at a classic English mystery novel... I love that form very much because the reader is so familiar with all of the types of characters that are in there that they already identify with the book.