I have always advised people never to apply for a job you do not really want.

I felt that if we, as the Met, were not intervening once one person starts digging up Parliament Square, then someone else is going to join in and you have a spiral.

In Zen brush-painting, the circle is a master's problem. It represents everything and nothing, and in so doing, the universe.

Magic is the stunning art of surprising your audience, so that nothing else surprises them.

Retire within thyself, and thou will discover how small a stock is there. [Lat., Tecum habita, et noris quam sit tibi curta supellex.]

I sometimes think it ironic for an ex-seaman, longshoreman, truck driver, policeman, bus driver, etc... to find success writing children's novels.

I am a rubbish flirt.

What we have to discover for ourselves leaves behind in our mind a pathway that can be used on another occasion.

What makes a good book? Scholars and critics have been debating that question for decades. I like books that touch my head and my heart at the same time.

It turns out that, somehow, there are a tremendous number of things to be optimistic about.

It's totally weird to see myself on a billboard!

The computer is really like a pencil, you know. It used to be. The pencil can do anything you want to, but you have to do it, and the same is with the computer.

He that has sense knows that learning is not knowledge, but rather the art of using it.