Rubbish! screamed a fat, elderly woman, in Richard's ear, as he passed her malodorous stall. "Junk!" she continued. "Garbage! Trash! Offal! Debris! Come and get it! Nothing whole or undamaged! Crap, tripe and useless piles of shit. You know you want it."

More from Neverwhere

• New messages: END IT ALL was one of them. PUT YOURSELF OUT OF YOUR MISERY. BE A MAN – DO YOURSELF IN. HAVE A FATAL ACCIDENT TODAY.
• “No wonder Atlantis sank,” muttered Richard. “If they all felt like this in the morning it was probably a relief.”
• Richard had noticed that events were cowards: they didn’t occur singly, but instead they would run in packs and leap out at him all at once.
• And now go, and make interesting mistakes, make amazing mistakes, make glorious and fantastic mistakes. Break rules. Leave the world more interesting for your being here. Make good art.
• I decided that I would do my best in future not to write books just for the money. If you didn’t get the money, then you didn’t have anything. If I did work I was proud of, and I didn’t get the money, at least I’d have the work.
• If you don’t know it’s impossible it’s easier to do. And because nobody’s done it before, they haven’t made up rules to stop anyone doing that again, yet.