Philip Reeve Quotations

Even tiny children looking at a picture book are using their imaginations, gleaning clues from the images to understand what is happening, and perhaps using the throwaway details which the illustrator includes to add their own elements to the story.

I used to be very fascinated by Victorian stuff, and my best-known books, the 'Mortal Engines' series, have a sort of retro, Victorian vibe, despite being set in the far future.

As a child I always steered clear of science fiction, but in the autumn of 1977, the bow-wave of publicity for the first Star Wars movie had already reached me, so I was eager for anything science-fictional.

I don't travel much; I just stay at home and imagine weird places.

I still feel, as I did when I was six or seven, that books are simply the best way to experience a story.

I've just written a very gritty, non-magical take on the King Arthur legend, 'Here Lies Arthur,' and I'm currently toying with some other historical ideas, as well as working with the illustrator David Wyatt on some sequels to my Victorian space opera 'Larklight.'

I had no idea I'd end up writing four books when I completed 'Mortal Engines.' I didn't even think it would find a publisher.

I was fascinated by 'The Lord of the Rings' from about the age of eight, and that lasted well into my teens.

I'm sure it came as no surprise to my friends and family when I became an illustrator and then a writer because, from about the age of five, I was one of those children who always had his nose in a book.

Moving cities are a fairly hoary old sci-fi trope - I seem to recall they were always cropping up on Doctor Who when I was young, though I may be misremembering.

My first encounter with science fiction was reading the work of H.G. Wells when I was nine or ten, and I don't believe 'The War of the Worlds' or 'The Time Machine' have ever been bettered. Plus, I have always had a liking for Victorian and Edwardian clothes and contraptions, which tends to color the worlds I dream up.

he cut through the 21st Century Gallery, past the big plastic statues of Pluto and Mickey, animal headed gods of lost America

But boys will be boys, even the ones who are only girls dressed up: That's one of the rules of the world.

That's the trouble with a story spinner. You never know what's real and what's made up. Even when they are telling the truth, they can't stop themselves from spinning it into something better; something prettier, with more of a pattern to it.

Is it...dead?" asked Tom, his voice all quivery with fright. "A town just ran over him," said Hester. "I shouldn't think he's very well...

Godshawk looked surprised, the way that people generally do when you ask them philosophical questions in shrubberies in the middle of the night.

It was a dark, blustery afternoon in spring, and the city of London was chasing a small mining town across the dried-out bed of the old North Sea.

An Engineer is no match for a Historian with his dander up!

Fever jumped aside just in time to dodge the shower of urine, and stumbled into the path of a religious procession - celebrants in robes and pointed hats whirling and clapping and chanting the name of some old-world prophet, 'Hari, Hari! Hari Potter!'

That's what History teaches us, I think, that life goes on, even though individuals die and whole civilizations crumble away: The simple things last; they are repeated over and over by each generation.

I used to be very fascinated by Victorian stuff, and my best-known books, the Mortal Engines series, have a sort of retro, Victorian vibe, despite being set in the far future.

I was fascinated by The Lord of the Rings from about the age of eight, and that lasted well into my teens.

But we're alive, and together, and we're going to be all right.

Sometimes, on our way through the world, we meet someone who touches our heart in a way others don't.

You aren't a hero and I'm not beautiful and we probably won't live happily ever after " she said. "But we're alive and together and we're going to be all right.

The one thing worse than an enemy is a friend turned false.