Sleep my little baby-oh Sleep until you waken When you wake you'll see the world If I'm not mistaken... Kiss a lover Dance a measure, Find your name And buried treasure... Face your life Its pain, Its pleasure, Leave no path untaken.

I wanted to write something that would be a comedy in the sense of making people feel happier when they finish it than they did when began it.

Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody's ever made before. Whatever you're scared of doing, Do it.

You can take for granted that people know more or less what a street, a shop, a beach, a sky, an oak tree look like. Tell them what makes this one different.

It has occasionally been remarked upon that it is as easy to overlook something large and obvious as it is to overlook something small and niggling, and that the large things one overlooks often cause problems.

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.

One word after another. That's the only way that novels get written and, short of elves coming in the night and turning your jumbled notes into Chapter Nine, it's the only way to do it. So keep on keeping on. Write another word and then another.