I only met Margaret Thatcher twice. The thing that I thought about meeting her was how extraordinarily intelligent she was. You really had to be on your game otherwise she'd make mincemeat of you.

All names mean something.

I didn't want to become some embittered old hack getting his revenge for the rest of my life. And I didn't want to become some scared creature cowering in a corner. I remember telling myself not to carry the hatred around, although I know where it is. I have it in a trunk in storage.

He knew what he knew: that the real world was full of magic, so magical worlds could easily be real.

It seems that the right of freedom of speech that was enshrined in numerous constitutions is now under attack by religious institutions.

England in a way is lucky. It's an island, so the frontiers are given by the sea.

Among the great struggles of man-good/evil, reason/unreason, etc.-there is also this mighty conflict between the fantasy of Home and the fantasy of Away, the dream of roots and the mirage of the journey.