Melvin Burgess quotes:

I get up between 6:30 and 8 am. I used to make a cup of coffee first thing, but now I have warm water with a bit of lemon juice in it. I've cut down on things as I was getting fat.

I read all the time so it's difficult to say who my all-time favourites are. One is George Orwell, because he makes political writing so simple a child could understand it.

In terms of sheer writing I might have done most of my work by 11. If you get up at 6:30 or 7 you can get a huge amount done by 11 and have the rest of the day off if you want to, though I have to check my accumulating e-mails. No one ever sends me horrible e-mails. Although some of my books are supposed to be hated, no one ever tells me.

When I was a child I used to read books by Gerald Durrell, who founded Jersey Zoo. He had a job collecting animals for zoos and for a long time that is what I wanted to do. Later when I was a teenager I had a fantastic English teacher called Mrs. Stafford. Her enthusiasm made me decide to be a writer.

It wasn't a love story." -Tar's dad It was a love story. Me, Gemma, and junk." -Tar

Love is a secret society, a community for two.

Sometimes maybe you need an experience. The experience can be a person or it can be a drug. The experience opens a door that was there all the time but you never saw it. Or maybe it blasts you into outer space...All that negative stuff. All the pain...It just floted away from me, I just floated away from it...up and away...

Being a teenager is as difficult as living with one. And we've all been there. Perhaps that's the reason we're so hard on them.

Anarchy loves theatre. That's the whole point. People forget that. You have to laugh at the devil, not fight him. They'll always have more guns, they'll always have more bombs that go off with a bigger bang. No matter how revolting you become they'll always be willing to be more revolting to you. They've had so much more practice.

He'd come back, all open and helpless, and I suppose that's what won her around in the end. But it was so sad, because it was being himself that he found so difficult to cope with.

It's mind control, see. You have to go to school, get those exams, get to university or college, get a job, get married, don't miss the boat, do it now or you'll shoot your life down the drain. Yeah. They got you as soon as you were born. They never risked a second of your life. When you have kids they'll be telling them they have to wear a plastic mask and put a penny in the slot about their nose before they can breathe in.

I've done everything. All of it. You think it, I've done it. All the things you never dared, all the things you dream about, all the things you were curious about and then forgot because you knew you never would. I did 'em, I did 'em yesterday while you were still in bed. What about you? When's it gonna be your turn?

She didn't have to be offered anything; it was already hers. She was more herself than anyone else ever was and as soon as I clapped eyes on her I knew I wanted to be myself just as much as she was herself.

She wrote, 'Dandelion, I love you.' And I thought that was magic. It's not in you, it's between you. It's bigger and stronger than you are

That's her secret, I suppose. Everything that happens to her she's proud of. She makes it special by it happening to her.

The magic girl licked the wet off her arms and looked over to me as if to say, See? You don't have to behave like them, you don't have to behave like anyone.

The only thing that isn't free is you. You do as you're told. You sit in your seat until they say 'Stand'. You stay put til they say 'Go'. Maybe that's the way you like it. It's easy. It's all there. You don't have to think about. You don't even have to feel it.

Try it. You don't have to do it ever again if you don't want to. But try it once. Try everything once.