Personally I have a great deal of fun doing it, which is an inspiration in itself really. It really allows me to daydream, as in "schooldream" which is daydreaming with ink and get paid for it which is something I don't say to schools when I go in and talk to them.

Maybe those sorts of yes-or-no life-and-death decisions are easier to make because they are so black and white. I can cope with them because it's easier. Human emotions, well. . .they're just a fathomless collection of grays and I don't do so well on the midtones.

Every book should have a romance.

The Kingdom of Hereford was unique in the Ununited Kingdoms for having driving tests based on maturity, not age, much to the chagrin of a lot of males, some of whom were still failing to make the grade at thirty-two.

Don't ever call me mad, Mycroft. I'm not mad. I'm just ... well, differently moraled, that's all.

I wished I could share my own optimism.

In any regime there is always something that one should agree with, and in Shades there are quite a few notions that, on the face of it, seem like a good thing - the strict adherence to good manners, the fact that learning a musical instrument is compulsory, as is dancing, performing musicals and an hour's Useful Work every day in order to properly discharge your duty to society. But a cage is still a cage, irrespective of the nature of its bars.