A children's author on a soapbox is not a pleasant sight but I have become drawn into issues, slightly unwillingly, relating to young people, literacy and youth justice: just look at the number of young people we have locked up in prison, and the uselessness of it.

Anthony Horowitz

I love the idea that magic and witchcraft and battles between supernatural creatures could be raging all around us but just out of our sight.

Anthony Horowitz

magic sight ideas

You're never too young to die.

Anthony Horowitz

alex-rider young adventure

You can kiss me if you like," she said. Alex let go of her and turned away. "Thanks, Fiona," he said. "But frankly I'd prefer to kiss the horse.

Anthony Horowitz

horse kissing letting-go

Statues lined the stairs and stood, dotted across the roof. But they had been brutalized by time and the weather. Some were missing arms. Many had no faces. Once they had been saints and angels. Two hundred years standing in London had turned them into cripples.

Anthony Horowitz

angel weather years

We live in an age when there is no room for the impossible.

Anthony Horowitz

age impossible rooms

There's a dream world that we visit sometimes and that's how we found out who we are.

Anthony Horowitz

who-we-are dream world

There's a name for people with an interest in the moon," Alex said. "They're called lunatics.

Anthony Horowitz

moon names people

Childhood, after all, is the first precious coin that poverty steals from a child.

Anthony Horowitz

coins childhood children

We live in a world with so many dangers that we have to be careful whom we trust.

Anthony Horowitz

be-careful danger world

Inside every fat man, there's a thin man trying to get out.

Anthony Horowitz

fats trying men

A German philosopher once wrote that he who fights monsters must take care that he doesn't become one himself.

Anthony Horowitz

care fighting monsters

I have a couple of questions," he said. "Do, please, go ahead." "My first one is for Yassen Gregorovich." He turned to the Russian. "Why are you working for this lunatic?" "I sometimes think that I was richer when I was eight years old than most people will be in their lifetime!" "Do we have to listen to this?" Alex asked.

Anthony Horowitz

eight couple thinking

The worst time to feel alone is when you're in a crowd.

Anthony Horowitz

worst-times crowds worst

Routine is the one thing the can get you killed. It tells the enemy where you're going and when you're going to be there.

Anthony Horowitz

one-thing routine enemy

The platform underneath the balloon fell on her as she was trying to escape," she explained. "She was crushed." "I'd have been disappointed too.

Anthony Horowitz

balloons platforms trying

I didn't set fire to the building." "No, but you did pull it into the river." "That put the fire out!

Anthony Horowitz

building fire rivers

You're trying to tell me that everything you've done is for a good cause. You think that all this killing is worth it because of the results. I'm not sure I agree. Lots of people work for charity; lots of people want to change the world. But they don't have to behave like you.

Anthony Horowitz

trying people thinking

When the doorbell rings at three in the morning, it's never good news.

Anthony Horowitz

news three morning

"I think my reputation will look after itself," Holmes said. "If they hang me, Watson, I shall leave it to you to persuade your readers that the whole thing was a misunderstanding."

Anthony Horowitz

reputation looks thinking

There are problems and there are children. It is our aim to separate the two.

Anthony Horowitz

problem two children