A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom.

A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men.

A writer of fiction lives in fear. Each new day demands new ideas and he can never be sure whether he is going to come up with them or not. Show less «

[when asked what the his formula for success was as an author of children's books] Conspiring with children against adults. Show less «

[his novel Over to You] Ten stories of flyers and flying.

[1988 interview with Todd McCormack] When you're writing a book, with people in it as opposed to animals, it is no good having people who are ordinary, because they are not going to interest your readers at all. Every writer in the world has to use the characters that have something interesting about them and this is even more true in children's books. I find that the only way to make my characters really interesting to children is to exaggerate all their good or bad qualities, and so if a person is nasty or bad or cruel, you make them very nasty, very bad, very cruel. If they are ugly, you make them extremely ugly. That, I think, is fun and makes an impact. Show less «

My faults and foibles are legion.