I don't believe in fate," she said at last. "But I do believe in...loopholes. I think a lot of what keeps the world going is the result of accidents — happy or otherwise — and taking advantage of these.

Write what you want to read. The person you know best in this world is you. Listen to yourself. If you are excited by what you are writing, you have a much better chance of putting that excitement over to a reader.

It doesn't matter if I'm only to be gone four days, as in this case; I take six months' supply of reading material everywhere. Anyone who needs further explication of this eccentricity can find it usefully set out in the first pages of W. Somerset Maugham's story "The Book-Bag.

If you wish, I shall go personally to your City and knock together the heads of Perlith and Galooney.

Because she was a princess she had a pegasus.

Everything was an adventure, at night, when you were where you shouldn't be, even if it was somwhere you could go perfectly well in daylight, and it was then only ordinary.

I advise those who want to become writers to study veterinary medicine, which is easier. You don't want to be a writer unless you have no choice - and if you have no choice, good luck to you.