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

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

" The best sort of activity is one that combines mental effort with sensuous delight. That's why I love drawing. "

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

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

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

" The arts are beyond price; they're beyond value. They're of incalculable worth in what it means to be a human being. "

" 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. "

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

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

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

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

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" We don't need lists of rights and wrongs, tables of do's and don'ts: we need books, time, and silence. Thou shalt not is soon forgotten, but Once upon a time lasts forever. "

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

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

" That's the duty of the old, to be anxious on behalf of the young. And the duty of the young is to scorn the anxiety of the old. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" For that reason you can't write with music playing, and anyone who says he can is either writing badly, or not listening to the music, or lying. You need to hear what you're writing, and for that you need silence. "

" Possibly because I earn my living as a writer of fiction and possibly because it's just the sensible thing to do, I like to pay attention to everything I come across, including things that evoke the uncanny or the mysterious. "

" One handy piece of equipment, which I recommend to any writer of fiction, is a set of Myriorama cards. I consult them frequently. "