I must have read every issue of 'Punch' published in the 20th century, and I think in the process I picked up the true voice of English humour - that amiable, fairly liberal, laconic voice which you find in something like 'Three Men in a Boat.'

I'm a fantasy writer, called a fantasy writer. But there's very little, apart from one or two basic concepts in 'I Shall Wear Midnight,' which are in fact fantasy. You have sticks that fly, but they're practical broomsticks, with a bloody great strap that you can hold on to so you don't fall off. And you try not to use them too often.

Give anyone a lever long enough and they can change the world. It's unreliable levers that are the problem.

At such times the universe gets a little closer to us. They are strange times, times of beginnings and endings. Dangerous and powerful. And we feel it even if we don't know what it is. These times are not necessarily good, and not necessarily bad. In fact, what they are depends on what *we* are.

When I was a kid, I read the science-fiction shelves, and I read the fantasy shelves.

Have a bit more patience with newbies. Of course some of them act dumb - they're often students, for heaven's sake.

Last hopeless chances have got to work. Nothing makes sense otherwise. You might as well not be alive.