This is how you do it: you sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until its done. It's that easy, and that hard.

And life is a good thing for a writer. It's where we get our raw material, for a start. We quite like to stop and watch it.

You have to finish things - that's what you learn from, you learn by finishing things.

Writing imaginative tales for the young is like sending coals to Newcastle. For coals.

I once read that you die because you see the Angel of Death, and you fall in love. And you fall in love so hard your soul is sucked out through your eyes, and that's the moment of death. It's a lovely, strange old Jewish legend.

I already killed you once today, what does it take to teach some people?

So, having found a lady, could you not have come to her aid, or left her alone? Why drag her into your foolishness?' 'Love,' he explained. She looked at him with eyes the blue of the sky. 'I hope you choke on it,' she said, flatly.