“And while we're on the subject of ducks, which we plainly are, the story, 'The Ugly Duckling' ought be banned as the central character wasn't a duckling or he wouldn't have grown up into a swan. He was a cygnet.”

“I don't have ugly ducklings turning into swans in my stories. I have ugly ducklings turning into confident ducks.”

“All penguins are the same below the surface, which I think is as perfect an analogy as we're likely to get for the futility of racism.”

“He glanced first at me, and then at his devastated flowerbed; all plowed up and butchered, like a Ripper victim- like Pearly Poll, lying gutted in Hanway Street, Spitalfields.”

“Some people were just getting on with their lives, chatting, being young. It simply wouldn't do.”

“In the story of Ugly Duckling, when did the Ugly Duckling stop feeling Ugly? When he realized that he was a Swan. Each of us has something Special, a swan of some sort, hidden inside somewhere. But until we recognize that it's there, what can we do but splash around, treading water? The Wise are Who They Are. They work with what they've got and do what they can do.”

“I struggle in these situations not to let my madness govern me, and to let the positive aspects of my character define my life.”