“Oh, man," Xavier groaned. "See what you've done--now I'm stressing.""You can't! You're the stable one!"Xavier laughed and I realized his distress had been feigned to illustrate a point. He wasn't worried in the slightest."Just relax. Go and run a bath or have a shot of brandy.""Okay.""That second bit was a joke. We both know you can't hold your liquor.”

“Oh, man," Xavier groaned. "See what you've done--now I'm stressing.""You can't! You're the stable one!"Xavier laughed and I realized his distress had been feigned to illustrate a point. He wasn't worried in the slightest."Just relax. Go and run a bath or have a shot of brandy.""Okay.""That second bit was a joke. We both know you can't hold your liquor.”

“Imagination and invention go hand in hand. Remember how lack of resources was never a problem in childhood games? Shift a few pieces of furniture around the living room, and you have yourself a fort.”

“Although technology has enhanced our lives in many ways, it has also ensured the erosion of imagination.”

“I never thought about writing a novel until I was 13, and that happened by chance. I was on school holidays, and I was bored, and I thought I just wanted to do something to occupy myself instead of asking, 'What can I do, mum? Entertain me.' I started, and it really just took over, and I realised, 'Wow, this is an amazing experience.'”

“Childhood is just this amazing place, and in my books, I was trying to express my concern about childhood being eroded. You have kids' TV programs being interrupted by terrorist attacks, and kids are exposed to so much these days.”

“Imagination makes us aware of limitless possibilities. How many of us haven't pondered the concept of infinity or imagined the possibility of time travel? In one of her poems, Emily Bronte likens imagination to a constant companion, but I prefer to think of it as a built-in entertainment system.”

“We have a host of English teachers in the family. My mum is an English teacher, and so are my dad, my aunt and my uncle. I have grown up with family writing competitions, and I can't remember a birthday or Christmas present that didn't include books.”

“Here is just the beginning of a list of skills that exam results cannot possibly hope to reflect: interpersonal skills, the ability to entertain, how articulate we are as speakers, our ability to work as part of a team, the ability to deal with challenges and invention.”

“The water was lapping around my waist by the time Ivy and Gabriel found me. I was shivering, but I hardly noticed. I didn't move or speak, not even when Gabriel lifted me out of the water and carried me back to our house. Ivy helped me into the shower, and came to help me out half an hour later when I'd forgotten where I was and just stood under the pounding water. Gabriel bought me some dinner, but I couldn't eat it. I sat on my bed, staring into space and doing nothing but thinking of Xavier and trying not to think of him at the same time. The separation made me realize just how safe I felt with him. I craved his touch, his smell, even the awareness that he was nearby. But now he felt miles away, and I couldn't reach him, and that knowledge made me feel ready to crumble, to cease to exist.”

“Actually Gabriel’s an archangel,” I corrected. “But otherwise, yes.”“Well, that explains why he’s so hard to impress,” said Xavier flippantly”

“Love you,” Xavier said just before he drifted back to sleep.“Love you more,” I said playfully.“Not a chance,” Xavier said, fully awake now. “I’m bigger, I can contain more love.”“I’m smaller, therefore my love particles are more compressed, which means I can fit more in.”Xavier laughed. “That argument makes no sense. Overruled.”“I’m just basing it on how much I miss you when you’re not around,” I countered.“How can you possibly know how much I miss you?” he said. “Have you got some sort of built-in miss-o-meter that can give us a reading?”“I’m a girl; of course I have a built-in miss-o-meter.”