Men and women are moved by tides much fiercer than you can imagine, and they sweep us all up into the current.

I was born in Norwich in 1946, and educated in England, Zimbabwe, and Australia, before my family settled in North Wales.

And then Serafina understood something for which the witches had no word: it was the idea of pilgrimage. She understood why these beings would wait for thousands of years and travel vast distances in order to be close to something important, and how they would feel differently for the rest of time, having been briefly in its presence. That was how these creatures looked now, these beautiful pilgrims of rarefied light, standing around the girl with the dirty-face and the tartan skirt and the boy with the wounded hand who was frowning in his sleep.

Maybe sometimes we don't do the right thing because the wrong thing looks more dangerous, and we don't want to look scared, so we go and do the wrong thing just because it's dangerous. We're more concerned with not looking scared than with judging right.

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

And think what worrying does: has anyone ever added a single hour to the length of his life by worrying about it?

Tell them stories. They need the truth you must tell them true stories, and everything will be well, just tell them stories.