If anybody had shown me the paperwork for how my life was going to look in five years, I would have said, "No. That is not where I want to go."

It was all in my head and now all I had to do was figure out a way to get it down on paper.

Keeping people safe is a story we tell ourselves.

Writing is a job, a talent, but it's also the place to go in your head. It is the imaginary friend you drink your tea with in the afternoon.

If what we want to do is promote reading and writing and publishing and making sure this is a business that keeps going - because it is a business! It's not just an art - then we have to take responsibility. I get sort of crazy and frothy when I think about this. It really matters.

When I am emperor, I will abolish private education. Private schools, private college. All of these parents with money and energy and the drive for bake sales and a desire to leave their vast fortunes to education - everybody would have to be eating out of the same educational pot.

I was always on time, I did my work to exact specifications, I spoke when spoken to.