If I learned anything in this life, I've learned that you can't cling on.

I was brought up, as a lot of kids are, on 'Aesop's Fables,' 'Brothers Grimm,' 'La Fontaine,' all those sorts of things. Hans Christian Andersen is a hero of mine.

I can hate you more, but I'll never love you less.

I think people are more in contact now with the consequences of war than they've been for a very long time. And that's what amazes me when sometimes politicians seem to forget their history. They don't look and re-learn about what has happened before. Maybe they haven't got the memory, maybe they're already too young, but you can see how we become puffed up, and how we as a nation rise so quickly if we're not careful.

It is the child's understanding that teaches the adults the way of the future. They're still doing it today with modern technology.

If it is possible to be happy in the middle of a nightmare, then Topthorn and I were happy that summer.

Characters are the key to a good book. It took me several novels to comprehend that.