The great growling engine of change - technology.

It's hard for children's authors to be accepted when they try to write adult books. J.K. Rowling is the exception because people are so eager to read anything by her but it took Judy Blume three or four tries before she had a success.

I think money is essential to happiness and right now I wouldn't want to be anyone other than Wilbur Smith - I've had a fantastic life rewarded far more heavily than I deserve. Maybe I'd like to be J. K. Rowling but I'll settle for second best.

Like all young reporters - brilliant or hopelessly incompetent - I dreamed of the glamorous life of the foreign correspondent: prowling Vienna in a Burberry trench coat speaking a dozen languages to dangerous women narrowly escaping Sardinian bandits - the usual stuff that newspaper dreams are made of.

When it came to the stylish and graceful art of ballroom dancing my dad was a king of the clubs a prowling tiger and a wonderfully natural mover.

Well just meeting J. K. Rowling was amazing because she created all this world. And all the fans we all get so obsessed with it and then you met the one person who made it all up. It was just so amazing. And I was just so amazed that that she wrote this book and all of the films have happened.

In the 1970s and 1980s there was so little decent fiction for young people but we're now in a golden age that shows no sign of fading. Philip Pullman J. K. Rowling Lemony Snicket are only three of the best known among a good number of equals.