The idea of withholding a massive secret is obviously quite exciting to some people. It is also the basis of much classic drama, of course, from Sophocles onwards.

The rule is: don’t use commas like a stupid person. I mean it.

Punctuation marks are the traffic signals of language: they tell us to slow down, notice this, take a detour, and stop.

One of the things that all authors of fiction must learn to judge is whether - and in what detail - to describe the face of a character.

To some people, the fact that I am not married, or don't have children, would be the reason I have written a book on punctuation.

You should read Wodehouse when you're well and when you're poorly;when you're travelling, and when you're not;when you're feeling clever, and when you're feeling utterly dim. Wodehouse always lifts your spirits,no matter how high they happen to be already.

As someone who sends texts messages more or less non-stop, I enjoy one particular aspect of texting more than anything else: that it is possible to sit in a crowded railway carriage laboriously spelling out quite long words in full, and using an enormous amount of punctuation, without anyone being aware of how outrageously subversive I am being.