We...we could be friends.' We COULD be rare specimens of an exotic breed of dancing African elephants, but we're not. At least, I'M not.

I'll find you. Don't worry. Just be on your own and I'll find you.

Fiction gives us empathy: it puts us inside the minds of other people, gives us the gifts of seeing the world through their eyes. Fiction is a lie that tells us true things, over and over.

The world is always ending for someone. It’s a good line. I give it to the father of the child. He says it to his wife. ‘The world is always ending for someone,’ he says. She is trying to quieten the baby, and does not hear him. I doubt that it would matter if she did.

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.

He sighed. It was a long sigh, weary and worldly-wise. The kind of sigh you could picture God heaving after six days of hard work and looking forward to some serious cosmic R&R, only to be handed a report by an angel concerning a problem with someone eating an apple.

He told me not to seek revenge, but to seek the Buddha,' said the fox spirit, sadly. 'Wise counsel,' said the fox of dreams. 'Vegeance can be a road that has no ending. You would be wise to avoid it. And...?' 'I shall seek the Buddha,' said the fox, with a toss of her head. 'But first I shall seek revenge.