The sun is simple. A sword is simple. A storm is simple. Behind everything simple is a huge tail of complicated.

They were indeed what was known as 'old money', which meant that it had been made so long ago that the black deeds which had originally filled the coffers were now historically irrelevant. Funny, that: a brigand for a father was something you kept quiet about, but a slave-taking pirate for a great-great-great-grandfather was something to boast of over the port. Time turned the evil bastards into rogues, and rogue was a word with a twinkle in its eye and nothing to be ashamed of.

I'm up to my neck in the real world, every day. Just you try doing your VAT return with a head full of goblins.

The truth is a fog, in which one man sees the heavenly host and the other one sees a flying elephant.

Raising the flag and singing the anthem are, while somewhat suspicious, not in themselves acts of treason.

Soon to come in licorice, orange, cinnamon, and banana, but not strawberry, because I hate strawberries.

No one's policing their own minds more than an author. You spend a lot of time in your own head analysing what you think about things, and a philosophy comes.