There is another consequence of any belief in a single god, and that is that it is a very good excuse for people to behave very badly.

She longed for cutlasses, pistols, and brandy; she had to make do with coffee, and pencils, and verbs.

For a long time I thought I was a poet, but that's a high title to claim.

We need to ensure that children are not forced to waste their time on barren rubbish.

He meant the Kingdom was over, the Kingdom of Heaven, it was all finished. We shouldn't live as if it mattered more than this life in this world, because where we are is always the most important place.... We have to be all those difficult things like cheerful and kind and curious and patient, and we've got to study and think and work hard, all of us, in all our different worlds, and then we'll build... The Republic of Heaven.

If you want something you can have it, but only if you want everything that goes with it, including all the hard work and the despair, and only if you're willing to risk failure.

One of the ways in which writers most show their inventiveness is in the things they tell us about how they write. Generally speaking, I don't like to make a plan before I've written a story. I find it kills the story - deadens it, makes it uninteresting. Unless I'm surprised by something in a story, the reader's not going to be surprised either.