I started writing when I was about 20, 21 maybe.

He had noticed that events were cowards: they didn't occur singly, but instead they would run in packs and leap out at him all at once.

There's a but, isn't there?" said Coraline. "I can feel it. Like a rain cloud.

Stories are webs, interconnected strand to strand, and you follow each story to the center, because the center is the end. Each person is a strand of the story.

We are always living in the final days. What have you got? A hundred years or much, much less until the end of your world.

People believe, thought Shadow. It's what people do. They believe, and then they do not take responsibility for their beliefs; they conjure things, and do not trust the conjuration. People populate the darkness; with ghost, with gods, with electrons, with tales. People imagine, and people believe; and it is that rock solid belief, that makes things happen.

For me, the glory of my first 25 years as a writer was I could put things off as long as I wanted.