Acceptable rules of conduct were suspended when it came to the spoon shortage. The deficit had gotten so bad that prices were all but unaffordable, a….

Pretend to be mad and talk a lot. Then — and this is the important bit — do nothing at all until you absolutely have to and then make sure everyone d….

Growth purely for its own sake is the philosophy of cancer..

Mr. Pewter led them through to a library, filled with thousands of antiquarian books. 'Impressive, eh?' 'Very,' said Jack. 'How did you amass all the….

I would so hate to be a first-person character! Always on your guard, always having people read your thoughts!.

Literary detection and firearms don't really go hand in hand; pen mighter than the sword and so forth..

Agents and publishers only want one thing - good writing..

Humans like stories. Humans need stories. Stories are good. Stories work. Story clarifies and captures the essence of the human spirit. Story, in all….

I still feel threatened by academics, but my books have a lot of academic in-jokes and everybody assumes I went to university and studied English..

DCI Horner's advice to Jack Spratt: "Remember, m'boy," his old boss had said, eyes twinkling, "that if anyone tries to get the better of you, stand u….

You nearly killed eight people!" I managed to gasp out loud. "My count was closer to twelve," returned Havisham as she opened the door. "And anyhow, ….

Okay, this is the wisdom. First, time spent on reconnaissanse is never wasted. Second, almost anything can be improved with the addition of bacon. An….

There's something rotten in the state of Denmark, and Hamlet says...it's payback time!.

I've never been averse to a little risk - after all, writing without risk is not really writing at all. Sometimes one has to just let fly with a high….

I've managed to bring the backlog down to a mere sixty-eight years," she announced with some small sense of achievement. "I hope to be able to start ….

We're in a psuedoscientific technobabble..

If the real world were a book, it would never find a publisher..

To each our own Hamlet..

For every expert there is an equal and opposite expert..

Failure concentrates the mind wonderfully. If you don't make mistakes, you're not trying hard enough..

Don't let anyone tell you the future is already written. The best any prophet can do is to give you the most likely version of future events. It is u….