Some people are heroes. And some people jot down notes.

That was the very centre of his genius - he invented things that anyone could have thought of, and men who can invent things that anyone could have thought of are very rare men.

Sometimes you had to take a look at yourself and then look away.

I don't want to hurt you, Mistress Weatherwax," said Mrs Gogol. "That's good," said Granny. "I don't want you to hurt me either.

I read the best works of some of the best satirists, and indeed best writers from the beginning of the Victorian era to about the 1960s. If you want to be a blacksmith, you go and watch the blacksmith working, and you work out what the blacksmith does.

You can't build a plot out of jokes. You need tragic relief. And you need to let people know that when a lot of frightened people are running around with edged weaponry, there are deaths. Stupid deaths, usually. I'm not writing 'The A-Team' - if there's a fight going on, people will get hurt. Not letting this happen would be a betrayal.

I dinna trust him," said Slightly Mad Angus. "He reads books an' such.