Every step is a first step if it's a step in the right direction.

Some people think this is paranoia, but it isn't. Paranoids only think everyone is out to get them. Wizards know it.

He never pays attention, he always knows the answer, and he can never tell you how he knows. We can't keep thrashing him. He is a bad example to the other pupils. There's no educating a smart boy.

Everyone knew there were wolves in the mountains, but they seldom came near the village-the modern wolves were the offspring of ancestors that had survived because they had learned that human meat had sharp edges.

Once you've ruled out the impossible then whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truth. The problem lay in working out what was impossible, of course. That was the trick, all right. There was also the curious incident of the orangutan in the night-time.

Polly felt questing eyes boring into her. She was embarrassed, of course. But not for the obvious reason. It was for the other one, the little lesson that life sometimes rams home with a stick: you are not the only one watching the world. Other people are people; while you watch them they watch you, and they think about you while you think about them. The world isn’t just about you.

I was a very keen reader of science fiction, and during the time I was going to libraries, it was good, written by people who knew their science.