"I sort of try to read the books when they come out impartially and not make up my mind, but the fact is when I was reading the sixth, 'Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince', there were bits in there where I was going, 'God, I would love to do that because it's so good'"
"The average Hollywood film star's ambition is to be admired by an American, courted by an Italian, married to an Englishman and have a French boyfriend"
"I always wanted to go to the Chavez school but I could never afford it when I was growing up so a lot of my learning came from magic books and watching other magicians. I was also very lucky that I had a couple of really good magic teachers"
"Amongst Women concentrated on the family, and the new book concentrates on a small community. The dominant units in Irish society are the family and the locality. The idea was that the whole world would grow out from that small space"
"I think for anybody reading the book they're going to get an idea in their heads of all those characters, and I think that once that gets fixed, it's quite hard to shake"