They may have been ugly. They may have been evil. But when it came to poetry in motion, the Things had all the grace and coordination of a deck-chair.

There was this about vampires : they could never look scruffy. Instead, they were... what was the word... deshabille. It meant untidy, but with bags and bags of style.

Sometimes the truth is arrived at by adding all the little lies together and deducting them from the totality of what is known.

Any true wizard, faced with a sign like 'Do not open this door. Really. We mean it. We're not kidding. Opening this door will mean the end of the universe,' would automatically open the door in order to see what all the fuss is about. This made signs rather a waste of time, but at least it meant that when you handed what was left of the wizard to his grieving relatives you could say, as they grasped the jar, 'We told him not to."

It is possibly worth mentioning at this point that Mr. Young thought that paparazzi was a kind of Italian linoleum.

Belief was never mentioned at home, but right actions were taught by daily example.

My idea of a good novel was one you made enough money out of to buy a greenhouse.