We have an hour before we have to leave," Cray said. "So I thought I might tell you a little about myself. I thought it might pass the time." "I'm not really all that interested," Alex said.

My writing has always been what you call 'narrative fiction' in the sense that it's got very strong plots and twists at the end.

Statues lined the stairs and stood, dotted across the roof. But they had been brutalized by time and the weather. Some were missing arms. Many had no faces. Once they had been saints and angels. Two hundred years standing in London had turned them into cripples.

We're meant to be friends but you never tell me anything.

Authors have odd relationships with their creations They owe their fame and fortune to their characters but feel enslaved by them.

You're my closest friend and you're thousands of miles away.

I have a couple of questions," he said. "Do, please, go ahead." "My first one is for Yassen Gregorovich." He turned to the Russian. "Why are you working for this lunatic?" "I sometimes think that I was richer when I was eight years old than most people will be in their lifetime!" "Do we have to listen to this?" Alex asked.