The message is clear: libraries matter. Their solid presence at the heart of our towns sends the proud signal that everyone - whoever they are, whatever their educational background, whatever their age or their needs - is welcome.

Lots of people have objections to prizes of all types, and it would be extraordinary if everybody agreed on anything that's worthwhile - they never do.

There's no black and no white, just shades of grey...But the small betrayals lead to bigger ones, morality is eroded.

For when all else is done, on­ly words re­main. Words en­dure.

There is no pattern the human mind can devise that does not exist already within the bounds of nature...Everything we do, see, write, notate, all are an echo of the deep seams of the universe. Music is the invisible world made visible through sound.

Usually I decide on what it is I'm writing next by the books I'm reading.

The dead leave their shadows, an echo of the space within which once they lived. They haunt us, never fading or growing older as we do. The loss we grieve is not just their futures but our own.