I'm fairy godmothering a girl who sounds like something you put up in the rain.

It is always useful to face an enemy who is prepared to die for his country," he read. "This means that both you and he have exactly the same aim in mind.

Young adults that actually read are reading bodice rippers and best-sellers and me. And Horror.

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.

Are you a philosopher? Where's your sponge?

I think perhaps the most important problem is that we are trying to understand the fundamental workings of the universe via a language devised for telling one another when the best fruit is.

Previous generations understood about death, and undoubtedly would have seen a reasonable amount of death. Once you get into the Victorian era, you might well have seen the funerals of many of your siblings before you were very old.