Also, in my bedroom, nobody minded if I kept the hall door half-open, allowing in enough light that I was not scared of the dark, and, just as important, allowing me to read secretly, after my bedtime, using the dim hallway light to read by, if I needed to. I always needed to.

The real world has no obligation to be convincing, so it throws up some very weird moments sometimes.

Whatever's happening," she said, eventually, "it can all be sorted out." She saw the expression on my face then, worried. Scared even. And she said, "After pancakes.

As a kid I would get my parents to drop me off at my local library on their way to work during the summer holidays and I would walk home at night. For several years I read the children's library until I finished the children's library. Then I moved into the adult library and slowly worked my way through them.

Stories you read when you're the right age never quite leave you. You may forget who wrote them or what the story was called. Sometimes you'll forget precisely what happened, but if a story touches you it will stay with you, haunting the places in your mind that you rarely ever visit.

Not gay, just never met the right woman.

The only reason people die, is because EVERYONE does it. You all just go along with it. It's RUBBISH, death. It's STUPID. I don't want nothing to do with it.