We make choices. No one else can live our lives for us. And we must confront and accept the consequences of our actions.

I am frightened of nothing." "Nothing?" "Nothing." "Are you extremely frightened of nothing?" "Absolutely terrified of it." "I have nothing in my pockets. Would you like to see it?" "No, I most definitely would not.

It sounded like a piece of blackboard being dragged over the nails of a wall of severed fingers.

Repeat after me, there are the living and the dead, there are day-folk and night-folk, there are ghouls and mist-walkers, there are high hunters and the Hounds of God. Also, there are solitary types." "What are you?" asked Bod. "I," she said sternly, "am Miss Lupescu." "And what is Silas?" She hesitated. Then she said, "He is a solitary type.

I am fascinated a) by transgressive art and b) what happens beyond the boundaries.

After a while it sort of began to rain, which is to say that it was the kind of rain that never comes to a decision about whether it's actually raining or not. Driving in it, you would never have been certain whether or not to turn on your wipers.

The simplest way to make sure that we raise literate children is to teach them to read, and to show them that reading is a pleasurable activity.