Tolkien has the right elements of snobbery and escapism to make it a huge success. John Buchan for teenagers. A compendium of disguised bigotry and English high church snobbery. I hate it for exactly those qualities which made it so popular. It's a lullaby. Not sure we need lullabies at the moment. Unless we're all just going to give up, go to sleep and wake up dead.

Legends are best left as legends and attempts to make them real are rarely successful

The book trade invented literary prizes to stimulate sales, not to reward merit.

I had this funny family. At one end, they were breeding dogs in south-east London - for greyhound racing - and at the other, my uncle was living in Downing Street. And I would actually go to Downing Street, which didn't strike me as funny. I'd get on the number 15 bus.

I really did have a very egalitarian upbringing.

Elric knew that everything that existed had its opposite. In danger he might find peace. And yet, of course, in peace there was danger. Being an imperfect creature in an imperfect world he would always know paradox. And that was why in paradox there was always a kind of truth. That was why philosophers and soothsayers flourished. In a perfect world there would be no place for them. In an imperfect world the mysteries were always without solution and that was why there was always a great choice of solutions.