I was tops at the Scarlet O'Hara school of emotional distancing. I always thought about the uncomfortable stuff tomorrow, and, as everyone knows, tomorrow never comes.

Pritkin and Mircea mixed like oil and water, only not so well.

I wasn't entirely sure, but a polite John Pritkin might be a sign of the apocalypse.

He had the look of an atheist who’d just had a visit from God: stunned, disbelieving and faintly ill.

He wasn't that good looking, he had the social skills of a wet cat and the patience of a caffeinated hummingbird

There are things we want, and things we may have.... Sanity lies in knowing the difference.

And why not?” “You know why! This is a bad idea.” “Perhaps I like a challenge.” “Perhaps you’re a glutton for punishment!” “Perhaps I am in love.

Fresh blood at midnight isn't red. It's a purplish black that easily blends into the shadows.

We're going jogging." "I don't run for recreation. I run when someone's after me with a weapon." "That can be arranged.

Prevarication, how divine! I always did get along better with sinners.

No they called it the Codex Merlini because it was written by a guy named Ralph.

The world is full of terrible suffering, compared to which the small inconveniences of my childhood are as a drop of rain in the sea.

Suffering has a noble purpose.

No man can have a reasonable opinion of women until he has long lost interest in hair-restorers.

War is merely a continuation of politics.

And if people come up and say they like the movies you're in, it's a great compliment.

To accept good advice is but to increase one's own ability.

You can take the boy out of England, but you can't take England out of the boy. And ummm, yes, I feel a huge emotional attachment to England.

I just want to go to university and have fun - I want to be an ordinary student. I'm only going to university. It's not like I'm getting married - though that's what it feels like sometimes.

Luck is not a magical ability or a gift from the gods. Instead, it is a way of thinking and behaving.

My alter egos have changed a lot over the years. When I was a child, I was a black horse called Storm. Whinnying and jumping over bamboo poles in the garden took up pretty much my entire childhood.