His name is Marcus: he is four and a half and possesses that deep gravity and seriousness that only small children and mountain gorillas have ever been able to master.

The imagination and the place that dreams come from is so huge and so important. I'm trying to write about the real world, in that I'm trying to write about whatever it is the experience that makes us human, the things that we have in common.

Sexton: I think the whole world's gone mad. Death: Uh-uh. It's always like this. You probably just don't get out enough.

Ray Bradbury was not ahead of his time. He was perfectly of his time, and more than that: he created his time and left his mark on the time that followed.

I watched my life as if it were happening to someone else. My son died. And I was hurt, but I watched my hurt, and even relished it, a little, for now I could write a real death, a true loss. My heart was broken by my dark lady, and I wept, in my room, alone; but while I wept, somewhere inside I smiled.

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.

When you say words a lot they don't mean anything. Or maybe they don't mean anything anyway, and we just think they do.