Blind terror drove me on, with my flying stirrups whipping me into a frenzy. With no rider to carry I reached the kneeling riflemen first and they scattered as I came upon them.

There is the myth that writing books for children is easier than writing books for grownups, whereas we know that truly great books for children are works of genius, whether it's 'Alice in Wonderland' or the 'Gruffalo' or 'Northern Lights.' When it's a great book, it's a great book, whether it's for children or not.

I'm still not sure I want to be a writer. I think of myself as a storyteller more.

Any story you write about war, or film you make about war, is bound to be political whether you like it or not.

A notion for a story is for me a confluence of real events, historical perhaps, or from my own memory to create an exciting fusion.

I tell you, my friends,’ he said one day. ‘I tell you that I am the only sane man in the regiment. It’s the others that are mad, but they don’t know it. They fight a war and they don’t know what for. Isn’t that crazy? How can one man kill another and not really know the reason why he does it, except that the other man wears a different colour uniform and speaks a different language? And it’s me they call mad!

I don't consciously try to take my readers on a journey as I don't really think about my readers when I'm writing. I just try to write what I feel passionately about, to tell a story down onto the page.