Sheep are not the docile, pleasant creatures of the pastoral idyll. Any countryman will tell you that. They are sly, occasionally vicious, pathologically stupid. The lenient shepherd may find his flock unruly, definant. I cannot afford to be lenient.

All those moments, those memories. Everything that we are, compressed in just two or three kilos of paper — the weight of a human heart.

She always had that about her, that look of otherness, of eyes that see things much too far, and of thoughts that wander off the edge of the world.

If you can still write in spite of the fact that you're not getting paid, that nobody cares about what you're writing, that nobody wants to publish it, that everybody is telling you to do something else, and you still want to and you still enjoy it and you can't stop doing it...then you're a writer.

Gods? Don't let that impress you. Anyone can be a god if they have enough worshippers. You don't even have to have powers anymore. In my time I've seen theatre gods, gladiator gods, even storyteller gods - you people see gods everywhere. Gives you an excuse for not thinking for yourselves. God is just a word. Like Fury. like demon, Just words people use for things they don't understand. Reverse it and you get dog. It's just as appropriate.

I don't listen to music when I'm writing, but I often do when I'm reworking, editing or when I need to relax.

I dream a lot, in colour and in sound and scent. Quite a few of my stories have come from dreams.