We who make stories know that we tell lies for a living. But they are good lies that say true things, and we owe it to our readers to build them as best we can. Because somewhere out there is someone who needs that story. Someone who will grow up with a different landscape, who without that story will be a different person. And who with that story may have hope, or wisdom, or kindness, or comfort. And that is why we write.

Human beings do not like being pushed about by gods. They may seem to, on the surface, but somewhere on the inside, underneath it all, they sense it, and they resent it.

I don't think it would be fun to write after inhaling art fumes. (What are art fumes?) No, I just make stuff up. It's easier that way.

Short stories are tiny windows into other worlds and other minds and other dreams

He had had a severe shock some weeks earlier, when, having narrowly failed to capture a large grey-brown hare for his dinner, it had stopped at the edge of the forest, looked at him with disdain, and said, 'Well, I hope you're proud of yourself, that's all,' and had scampered off into the long grass

No, look, there's a blue box. It's bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. It can go anywhere in time and space and sometimes even where it's meant to go. And when it turns up, there's a bloke in it called The Doctor and there will be stuff wrong and he will do his best to sort it out and he will probably succeed cos he's awesome. Now sit down, shut up, and watch 'Blink'.

Once, I was a poet, and, like all poets, I spent too long in the Kingdom of Dreams.