You speak baby gibberish?' asked Jack. 'Fluently. The adult-education center ran a course, and I have a lot of time on my hands.' 'So what did he say?' 'I don't know.' 'I thought you said you spoke gibberish?' 'I do. But your baby doesn't. I think he's speaking either pre-toddler nonsense, a form of infact burble or an obscure dialect of gobbledygook. In any event, I can't understand a word he's saying.' 'Oh.

The best plans are always the simplest.

Individual words, sounds, squiggles on paper with no meanings other than those with which our imagination can clothe them.

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.

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.

Marriage, like spinach and opera, was something I had never thought I would like.

People don't change just because you know more about them.