Even in my side of the world, I've been in publishing for what, 25 or 26 years, and it's gone from being a gentlemen's club to being a few big players, and it's very corporatised.

Something in your voice tells me we approach the question of remuneration.

Empathize with stupidity and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot.

Mr Blawke always reminded me of a heron; I'm not sure why. Something to do with a sense of rapacious stillness, perhaps, and also the aura of one who knows time is on his side.

There's an old Sysan saying that the soup of life is salty enough without adding tears to it.

Torture is such a slippery slope; as soon as you allow a society or any legal system to do that, almost instantly you get a situation where people are being tortured for very trivial reasons.

My point has always been that, ever since the Industrial Revolution, science fiction has been the most important genre there is.

I remember being shocked when I discovered some of my school pals didn't have books in their homes. I thought it was like not having oxygen, or hot water.

I am, as I have always been, of the opinion that while the niceties of normal moral constraints should be our guides, they must not be our masters.

I've always loved Scotland, and I'm not a huge fan of big cities, to be honest. I like them to dip into for a bit, but I'm not sure I would want to live in one again.

In theory, I work an eight-hour day and a five-day week which means I can socialise with my pals who mostly have normal jobs like teaching and computer programming.

If you have assumed any character beyond your strength, you have both demeaned yourself ill in that and quitted one which you might have supported.

All art requires is courage and the commitment to eat lots of biscuits. D Ellis / 2016

You cannot fly like an eagle with the wings of a wren.

You have to say I am forgiven again and again until it becomes the story you believe about yourself.

I say no wealth is worth my life.

Arrogant, pompous, obnoxious, vain, cruel, verbose, a showoff. I have been called all of these. Of course, I am.

Africa doesn't leap on you immediately; it seeps slowly, and it's incredibly important to be respectful and humble there.

Imagination has the right to feast in the shade of the tree that it turns into a forest.

Germany is an anatomical oddity: it writes with its left hand and acts with its right.

God gave Himself to you: give yourself to God.