Humans like stories. Humans need stories. Stories are good. Stories work. Story clarifies and captures the essence of the human spirit. Story, in all its forms—of life, of love, of knowledge—has traced the upward surge of mankind. And story, you mark my words, will be with the last human to draw breath.

Without a yardstick sometimes the high points can be taken for granted.

I still feel threatened by academics, but my books have a lot of academic in-jokes and everybody assumes I went to university and studied English.

Marriage is an honorable estate and should not be used simply as an excuse for legal intercourse.

The barriers between reality and fiction are softer than we think; a bit like a frozen lake. Hundreds of people can walk across it, but then one evening a thin spot develops and someone falls through; the hole is frozen over by the following morning.

Have you ever wondered how nostalgia isn"t what it used to be?

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