Most of my work consisted of crossing out. Crossing out was the secret of all good writing.

... why I like timetables, because they make sure I don't get lost in time.

The way of creating believable characters is not by conforming to a set of PC rules.

And I go out of Father's house and I walk down the street, and it is very quiet even thought it is the middle of the day and I can't hear any noise except birds singing and wind and sometimes buildings falling down in the distance, and if I stand very close to traffic lights I can hear a little click as the colors change.

I started writing books for children because I could illustrate them myself and because, in my innocence, I thought they'd be easier.

Jane Austen was writing about boring people with desperately limited lives. We forget this because we've seen too many of her books on screen.

When I was 13 or 14, I started devouring novels; literature took quite a while to take me over, but it caught up just in time to save me from becoming a mathematician.