His parents called him Youngster. They did this in the subconcious hope that he might take the hint. Wensleydale gave the impression of having been born with a mental age of 47.

Some people are confident because they are fools. Leonard had the look of someone who was confident because, so far, he'd never found a reason not to be.

One thing that writers have in common is that they are readers first. They have read lots and lots of stuff, because they're just infested with lots of stuff.

It occurred to me that at one point it was like I had two diseases - one was Alzheimers, and the other was knowing I had Alzheimers.

But in his experience it was only a matter of time before the normal balance of the universe restored itself and started doing the usual terrible things to him.

You have the effrontery to be squeamish, it thought at him. But we were dragons. We were supposed to be cruel, cunning, heartless and terrible. But this much I can tell you, you ape – the great face pressed even closer, so that Wonse was staring into the pitiless depths of his eyes – we never burned and tortured and ripped one another apart and called it morality.

You were the kind of kid who couldn't see the difference between throwing rocks at a cat and setting it on fire.