As a child, my mother told me lots of fairy stories, many her own invention. She, too, tended to reverse the norm.

I'm not very good at being alive. Sometimes I despair of ever mastering it, getting it right. When I'm old, perhaps.

I just love writing. It's magical, it's somewhere else to go, it's somewhere much more dreadful, somewhere much more exciting. Somewhere I feel I belong, possibly more than in the so-called real world.

The humble were the elect of God. Did not the priests teach so, in their gemmed, kingly robes, from their towering pulpits?

Genre categories are irrelevant. I dislike them, but I do not have the casting vote.

There was no violence, no speed. It moved to the rhythm of an elder dance, putting all the rituals of the world to shame. Black, silver, gold and moon-opal, night and sea, fire, earth, air and water.

No one more cynical than an idealist.