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'The Magus,' usually described as a book for the young, is about learning that the world is a mysterious and limitless place, beyond our control, and all the more exciting - and daunting - because of it.

I'm like a magpie. I use lots of different things to build a character.

I'm a magpie in my fiction, taking whatever looks shiny and curious to line the nest of my story.

I live in the English countryside, so I'm surrounded by magpies.

I like sparkles; I think I'm a magpie.

Magoo's appeal lies in our hostility toward an older generation. But he's not only nearsighted physically. His mind is selective of what it sees, too. That is where the humor, the satire lies, in the difference between what he thinks he sees and reality as we see it.

I could live in a sari; I was born to wear a sari.

I have this magpie instinct for the next glittering object. There are one or two things I know I can't write about, though: DIY, cricket, automobile repair. I could study it for a lifetime and not produce a word on the carburettor.

I have a magpie mind, by which I mean I see and hear little things - photos, fragments of conversation - and store them away for future use.

All writers are magpies, right? We're always stealing bits from different places and then weaving them into our little nest.