...'being published’ is not the same as being a real writer.

But the ground shakes, as if something's trying to push up from below, and I think of other people's mothers shaking out their duvets or even God shaking out the fabric of space-time.

But I quite like the way you can talk about science without necessarily using mathematics, but using metaphors instead.

Real life is physical. Give me books instead. Give me the invisibility of the contents of books, the thoughts, the ideas, the images. Let me become part of a book. . . . an intertextual being: a book cyborg, or, considering that books aren't cybernetic, perhaps a bibliorg.

I think about stories and their logic and wonder if there can be any such thing as simply "there is a book.

Child, all books are magic. Just think,' he said, 'about what books make people do. People go to war on the basis of what they read in books. They believe in "facts" just because they are written down. They decide to adopt political systems, to travel to one place rather than another, to give up their job and go on a great adventure, to love or to hate. All books have tremendous power. And power is magic.' 'But are these books really magic...?

Most people would look at an animal in a cage and instinctively feel that it should be set free. . . . It's a dangerous world out there, filled with predators. . . . What would you prefer? A comfortable, safe, warm, cosy life in a cage, or an uncertain life of freedom.

In real life nothing means anything. Stuff happens and there just is no structure.

Routine kills creative thought.

I sit up in bed slowly, feeling the disappointment trickle away like puddles after a rain shower.

Sometimes you have to trust grownups, perhaps more so when they are not there to actually supervise you.

Homeopaths argue that water has a memory.

What folly takes light through ether to each eye from every horizon.

I feel like crying. There's something so sad about broken concrete.

Max always mumbles; not in a shy way, but rather as if he's telling you what it will cost to take out your worst enemy, or how much you'd have to pay to rig a horse race.

I always got a bit pissed off with those broadsheet sceptics who make their living being passionately angry about homeopathy, God, synchronicity or whatever, because it's as if they can't get past their emotions, and in their rage they become as faith-driven as the beliefs they criticise. I always said they give scientists a bad name. After all, science has to be about asking unthinkable questions, not closing down debate.

Not all events are stories.

People make events into stories. Stories give events meaning.

If something wants to be a story, it will be.

There's something romantic about it, of course, in the way only other people's lives can be.

Sometimes I like to think I live with ghosts. Not from my past, but wispy bits of ideas and books that hang in the air like silk puppets. Sometimes I think I see my own ideas, floating around too, but they usually don't last that long. They're more like mayflies; they're born, big and gleaming, and then they fly around, buzzing like crazy before they fall to the floor, dead, about twenty four hours later.

Patrick opens his arms about three feet wide and, with one finger pointing up on each hand, tries to show the scope of this thing. I notice that he doesn’t look at his hands as he does this, but at the wall behind me. It suddenly occurs to me that when people describe size this way, they’re relying on perspective to help them. He’s not saying ‘It’s this big.’ He’s saying ‘It would look this big from here if it was over there.

One minute I was playing chess and doing maths all the time, the next I had been rerouted into more 'normal' girls' activities: reading, writing stories and worrying about my clothes.

Nothing means anything but you still have to follow the rules.

The sky is grey, with a thin TV-static drizzle that hangs in the air like it's been freeze-framed.

Sometimes I wake up with such an immense sense of disappointment that I can hardly breathe.

Some writers, notably Anton Chekov, argue that all characters must be admirable, because once we've looked at anyone deeply enough and understood their motivation we must identify with them rather than judge them.