“You can almost always find chains of coincidence to disprove magic. That's because it doesn't happen the way it does in books. It makes those chains of coincidence. That's what it is.”

“You know, class is like magic. There's nothing there you can point to, it evaporates if you try to analyse it, but it's real and it affects how people behave and makes things happen.”

“Doing is doing. Does it mean that it doesn't matter if it's magic or not, anything you do has power and consequences and affects other people?”

“I love the train. Sitting here I feel connected to the last time I sat here, and the train to London too. It is in-between, suspended; and in rapid motion towards and away from, it is also poised between. There's a magic in that, not a magic you can work, a magic that's just there, giving a little colour and exhilaration to everything.”

“It doesn't matter. I have books, new books, and I can bear anything as long as there are books.”

“One of the things I've always liked about science fiction is the way it makes you think about things, and look at things from angles you'd never have thought about before.”

“Libraries really are wonderful. They're better than bookshops, even. I mean bookshops make a profit on selling you books, but libraries just sit there lending you books quietly out of the goodness of their hearts.”