“Grown ups are complicated creatures, full of quirks and secrets.”

“But there was one other thing that the grown-ups also knew, and it was this: that however small the chance might be of striking lucky, the chance is there. The chance had to be there.”

“When you're old enough to write a book for children, by then you'll have become a grown up and have lost all your jokeyness. Unless you're an undeveloped adult and still have an enormous amount of childishness in you.”

“The witching hour, somebody had once whispered to her, was a special moment in the middle of the night when every child and every grown-up was in a deep deep sleep, and all the dark things came out from hiding and had the world all to themselves.”

“...there are no secrets unless you keep them to yourself, and this was the greatest secret I had ever had to keep in my life so far.”

“The secret of life', he said, 'is to become very very good at somethin' that's very very 'ard to do.”

“An autobiography is a book a person writes about his own life and it is usually full of all sorts of boring details.”