Morning: Slept. Afternoon: Slept. Evening: Ate grass. Night: Ate grass. Decided grass is boring. Scratched. Hard to reach the itchy bits. Slept.

When someone is missing the really hard thing is that you never really do give up hope, even though the inquest says that she is dead, even though right from the beginning we already knew that we wouldn't see her again.

Lady Dance's music wasn't a magic charm. I'd misunderstood. We had all failed to understand. The song and dance didn't stop us dying. It just stopped the fear of death swallowing us up while we were still alive. 'Rejoice,' came the soft voice of Lady Dance in my mind. 'Watch the moon and stars...' Death had ruled my life till I met Lady Dance. Her dance had set me free.

One of my extraordinary regrets about my death is not so much that it's going to happen but simply that I'll never know what happens next.

We need to actually teach kids that books aren't like broccoli. You don't have to eat every bit on your plate. It's like secret adult's business. It's the secret we never, ever tell our children. No adult ever read a book because it's good for us. We read because it is fun.

A lot of dyslexic kids are actually more intelligent than average and are very good, because they've got very good memories, at disguising the fact that they can't read or have got problems in reading and literacy.

Often the true hero and heroines of my books are the houses, the places, the communities where people find a home.