"Virtue," he said. "The real thing. It's not some kind of cuddly teddy bear you can keep on the shelf until you need a hug. It's dangerous, which is why it makes people so nervous. Virtue has its own agenda, and believe me, it's not always yours. The word itself means strength, power. And when it gets loose, you'd better watch out." "Something bad might happen..." "Impossible. But possibly something painful."

What I try to do for my readers is to pass on some of the things that I found out about being thirteen after doing it for forty years.

You should know how terrible a power belief is, especially in the wrong hands -- and how do you tell which hands are wrong? Believe something and the Universe is on its way to being changed. Because you've changed, by believing. Once you've changed, other things start to follow.

My first generation of young readers now have not only children, but some of them have grandchildren to whom they're introducing their old passion.

You walk on water, and complain that you can't find anything to drink!

It's always been the children who have saved the universe from the previous generation and remade the universe in their own image.

Belief made no difference to the truth.