Do not lose hope — what you seek will be found. Trust ghosts. Trust those that you have helped to help you in their turn. Trust dreams. Trust your heart, and trust your story. (from 'Instructions')

According to my daughters, my most irritating habit is asking for cups of tea.

The cat wrinkled its nose and managed to look unimpressed. "Calling cats," it confided, "tends to be a rather overrated activity. Might as well call a whirlwind.

I think most things are pretty magical, and that it's less a matter of belief than it is one of just stopping to notice.

There are stories within stories, whispered in the quiet of the night, shouted above the roar of the day, and played out between lovers and enemies, strangers and friends. But all are fragile things made of just twenty-six letters arranged and re-arranged to form tales and imaginings which will dazzle your senses, haunt your imagination and move you to the very depths of your soul.

The fallen autumn leaves were slick beneath Bod's feet, and the mists blurred the edges of the world. Nothing was as clean-cut as he had thought it, a few minutes before.

You think you're being given all of these things: phones that can communicate with other devices, car service that's better than a taxi, all of these amazing things that are available to you at any time. It isn't until you've swum across the river that you can start to see the negative aspects of it all.