I had to persuade a dog to swallow a pill. I twittered for advice and I got suggestion after suggestion. Most of them didn't work. 'Put the pill in the sausage.' No - that doesn't work. 'Cheese.' No. Then someone said: 'You wrap it in butter and it will slide down.' I tried it and it worked! And I'd learnt how to give a pill to a dog through the magic of Twitter.

Work. Home. The pub. Meeting girls. Living in the city. Life. Is that all there is?

How big are souls anyway?" asked Coraline. The other mother sat down at the kitchen table and leaned against the back wall, saying nothing. She picked at her teeth with a long crimson-varnished fingernail, then she tapped the finger, gently, tap-tap-tap against the polished black surface of her black button eyes.

If I were only allowed to read or enjoy art or listen to music made by people whose opinions and beliefs were the same as mine, I think the world would be a pretty dismal sort of a place.

Then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life... You give them a piece of you. They don't ask for it. They do something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore.

There were faces at the windows and words written in blood; deep in the crypt a lonely ghoul crunched on something that might once have been alive; forked lightnings slashed the ebony night; the faceless were walking; all was right with the world

It may help to understand human affairs to be clear that most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused, not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally bad, but by people being fundamentally people.