There was something about being in the vicinity of Grahame Coats that always made Fat Charlie (a) speak in cliches and (b) begin to daydream about huge black helicopters first opening fire upon, then...
There was no moon but the night sky was a riot of crisp and glittering autumn stars. There were streetlights too and lights on buildings and on bridges which looked like earthbound stars and they glim...
There are stories that are true, in which each individual’s tale is unique and tragic, and the worst of the tragedy is that we have heard it before, and we cannot allow ourselves to feel it too deeply...
The one thing you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can. The moment that you feel th...
The man Jack was, above all things, a professional, or so he told himself,
The important thing to understand about American history, wrote Mr. Ibis, in his leather-bound journal, is that it is fictional, a charcoal-sketched simplicity for the children, or the easily bored. F...
The cat wrinkled its nose and managed to look unimpressed. Calling cats, it confided, tends to be a rather overrated activity. Might as well call a whirlwind.
The boundaries of our country, sir? Why sir, on the north we are bounded by the Aurora Borealis, on the east we are bounded by the rising sun, on the south we are bounded by the procession of the Equi...
The abbot cleared his throat. You are all very stupid people, he told them graciously, and you do not know anything at all.
Television and cinema were all very well, but these stories happened to other people. The stories I found in books happened inside my head. I was, in some way, there.It's the magic of fiction: you tak...
Stories are in one way or another mirrors. We use them to explain to ourselves how the world works or how it doesn’t work. Like mirrors stories prepare us for the day to come. They distract us from th...
Still, every little bit helps, as the old woman said when she pissed in the sea.
Sometimes you wake up. Sometimes the fall kills you. And sometimes, when you fall, you fly.
She decides to make a list of the things that make her happy. She writes 'plum-blossom' at the top of a piece of paper. Then she stares at the paper, unable to think of anything else. Eventually it be...
Perhaps it's a hard thing to say, but joy and sorrow are like milk and cookies.
People believe, thought Shadow. It's what people do. They believe, and then they do not take responsibility for their beliefs; they conjure things, and do not trust the conjuration. People populate th...
Nobody will ever hurt her. She’ll just smile her faint vague wonderful smile and walk away.
Myths are compost. They begin as religions, the most deeply held of beliefs, or as the stories that accrete to religions as they grow.
Mr. Croup began to laugh. It sounded like a piece of blackboard being dragged over the nails of a wall of severed fingers.
Libraries are the thin red line between civilization and barbarism.