In his head, his mother said, 'People shout when they don’t have the vocabulary to whisper'.

It occurred to me then that I was the opposite of my father. Because I was very, very good at destroying things.

Sometimes, your eyes see something your brain doesn't. You pick up a nmewspaper and yourhead gives you a phrase that you didn't consciously read yet. You walk into a room and you realize something's out of place before you've bothered to properly look. I felt that happening now." "Sam's thoughts on page 304 of Linger.

Dory is what Mum used to call a "strong-looking woman," which means that, from the back, she looked like a man, and, from the front, you preferred the back

The biggest mistake you can make is assuming that creativity will hit you all at once and the muse will carry you to the end of the book on feather wings while Foster the People plays gently in the background. Storytelling is work. Pleasurable work, usually, but it is work.

Imagine my delight and awe when I discovered such a thing was a real genre - contemporary fantasy or urban fantasy. It was like having my birthday twice in one week and cookie dough for breakfast.

I feel a strange, fierce squeeze in my heart when I see him, like pride, although there's nothing about Sean that I can take credit for.