“I was the kind of kid whose parents would drop him off at the local town library on their way to work, and I'd go and work my way through the children's area.”

“My parents would frisk me before family events. Before weddings, funerals, bar mitzvahs, and what have you. Because if they didn't, then the book would be hidden inside some pocket or other and as soon as whatever it was got under way I'd be found in a corner. That was who I was...that was what I did. I was the kid with the book.”

“The end of the story of Batman is he's dead. Because, in the end, the Batman dies. What else am I going to do? Retire and play golf? It doesn't work that way. It can't. I fight until I drop. And one day, I will drop.”

“I'd love to write some porn, but I don't know if I have the right engines. When I was a young man and I was tempted to write porn, imaginary parents would appear over my shoulder and read what I was writing; just about the point that I managed to banish the imaginary parents, real children would lean over my shoulder and read what I was writing.”

“Still. Four words.And I didn’t realize it until a couple of days ago, when someone wrote in to my blog:Dear Neil,If you could choose a quote - either by you or another author - to be inscribed on the wall of a public library children’s area, what would it be?Thanks!LynnI pondered a bit. I’d said a lot about books and kids’ reading over the years, and other people had said things pithier and wiser than I ever could. And then it hit me, and this is what I wrote: I’m not sure I’d put a quote up, if it was me, and I had a library wall to deface. I think I’d just remind people of the power of stories, and why they exist in the first place. I’d put up the four words that anyone telling a story wants to hear. The ones that show that it’s working, and that pages will be turned: “… and then w”

“I had to persuade a dog to swallow a pill. I twittered for advice and I got suggestion after suggestion. Most of them didn't work. 'Put the pill in the sausage.' No - that doesn't work. 'Cheese.' No.Then someone said: 'You wrap it in butter and it will slide down.'I tried it and it worked!And I'd learnt how to give a pill to a dog through the magic of Twitter.”

“It's like the people who believe they'll be happy if they go and live somewhere else, but who learn it doesn't work that way. Wherever you go, you take yourself with you. If you see what I mean.”