It Doesn't Stop Being Magic Just Because

The Phrase "may You Live In Interesting Times" Is The Lowest In A Trilogy Of Chinese Curses That Continue "may You Come To The Attention Of Those In Authority" And Finish With "may The Gods Give You Everything You Ask For." I Have No Idea About Its Authenticity.

The Point Of Page One Is To Make People Turn To Page Two And If At The End Of The Book People Think That The Book Was Good Value For Money, You Have Achieved Something, Because If You Haven't Achieved Those Things You're Not Going To Achieve The Other Thing.

After You've Been Working Fairly Intensively On A Novel For Six Months You Never Want To See The Damn Thing Again.

Natural Selection Saw To It That Professional Heroes Who At A Crucial Moment Tended To Ask Themselves Questions Like 'what Is My Purpose In Life?' Very Quickly Lacked Both.

A Witch Who Is Bored Might Do Anything. People Said Things Like 'we Had To Make Our Own Amusements In Those Days' As If This Signified Some Kind Of Moral Worth, And Perhaps It Did, But The Last Thing You Wanted A Witch To Do Was Get Bored And Start Making Her Own Amusements, Because Witches Sometimes Had Famously Erratic Ideas About What Was Amusing.