- I notice you didn't laugh, Mr. Black! - No, Your Majesty. We are forbidden to laugh at the things kings say, sire, because otherwise we would be at it all day.

I stroll along, talk, I sign books, people buy me drinks, I forget where my hotel is, I get lost and fall into some local body of water... done it hundreds of times.

Sometimes I really think people ought to have to pass a proper exam before they're allowed to be parents. Not just the practical, I mean.

You do know you could find yourself charged with being a dominant species while under the influence of impulse-driven consumerism, don't you?

It's not morbid to talk about death. Most people don't worry about death, they worry about a bad death.

Christ managed to boil down an awful lot of commandments to a few very simple rules for living. It's when you go backwards through the 'begats' and the Garden of Eden, and you start thinking, 'Hang on, that's a big punishment for eating one lousy apple... There's a human-rights issue.'

He felt that the darkness was full of unimaginable horrors - and the trouble with unimaginable horrors was that they were only too easy to imagine.