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" My only real claim to anyone's attention lies in my writing. "

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" For a long time I thought I was a poet, but that's a high title to claim. "

" The only instrument I play myself is the ukulele. "

" Everything has a meaning, if only we could read it. "

" Every government secretary of state or minister should jolly well go to the theatre, go to a concert, go to an art gallery, go to a museum, become somehow interested in these things. If they're not interested, they shouldn't be in government, full stop. "

" Argue with anything else, but don't argue with your own nature. "

" Comics are a wonderful form. You can do so much with it. "

" Authors are not a special case, deserving of more sympathy than many other groups. We are a particular case of a general degradation of the quality of life, and we are not going to stop pointing it out, because we speak for many other groups as well. "

" Men pass in front of our eyes like butterflies, creatures of a brief season. We love them; they are brave, proud, beautiful, clever; and they die almost at once. They die so soon that our hearts are continually racked with pain. "

" It should be a firmly established part of the curriculum that children should visit theatres and concert halls. "

" True education flowers at the point when delight falls in love with responsibility. "

" Being in love was like China: you knew it was there, and no doubt it was very interesting, and some people went there, but I never would. I'd spend all my life without ever going to China, but it wouldn't matter, because there was all the rest of the world to visit. "

" I have maintained a passionate interest in education, which leads me occasionally to make foolish and ill-considered remarks alleging that not everything is well in our schools. "

" You're lacking a human dimension of some sort if you're not interested in the arts. "

" I don't like it when I see my books sold cheaply. "

" Education and health were always matters of charity. You educated children and you helped the sick because they were good things to do, not because you were going to make money out of them. If you let the money-making principle, the profit-seeking motive, anywhere near education and health, things go bad. "

" Adam and Eve are like imaginary numbers, like the square root of minus one... If you include it in your equation, you can calculate all manners of things, which cannot be imagined without it. "

" Everyone in the book's ecology, starting with the author and including the publisher, the distributor, the booksellers, the libraries, and ending up with the reader, should benefit from a healthy book trade. "

" I love the way ravens fly; they are the most acrobatic and daring birds. "

" Trying to understand superstition rationally is like trying to pick up something made of wood by using a magnet. "

" If a nation allows its literary culture to die, it's a sign that it doesn't fundamentally care. "

" If you can't think of what to write, tough luck; write anyway. If you can think of lots more when you've finished the three pages, don't write it; it'll be that much easier to get going next day. "

" One curious thing about growing up is that you don't only move forward in time; you move backwards as well, as pieces of your parents' and grandparents' lives come to you. "

" What I couldn't help noticing was that I learned more about the novel in a morning by trying to write a page of one than I'd learned in seven years or so of trying to write criticism. "

" I tried writing out a plot with the second or third novel I wrote, and it was so boring, so desperately boring. "

" My parents tolerated me reading comics because they knew I was also reading 'proper' books, too. "

" I love all types of music - jazz, great pop music, world music and folk music - but the music I listen to most is piano music from the 18th, 19th and 20th century. Russian music in particular. "

" I'm trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief. "

" I have a desk that I can raise or lower according to the state of my aching back. Sometimes I stand at it, and sometimes I have it high up to write at and sometimes a bit lower to type. "

" What I do say is that I can write verse, and that the writing of verse in strict form is the best possible training for writing good prose. "

" The function of a book or a poem or a story is to delight, to enchant, to beguile. "