"All I want is for people, when they read my books, to feel companioned, to feel they're not alone in the world."
"'Tulip Fever' did change my life. It did that thing that sometimes happens when a book takes off - it opened doors on to whole other worlds."
"I've had a very lucky life because I'm of this generation where everything was possible."
"It's a very rich brew that's in your psyche by the time you're in your 60s, and I think that's rather interesting. It makes you feel you've lived a very long life; it's like going on holiday to three different cities rather than spending two weeks in Lisbon. You look back on the holiday, and you seem to have been away forever."
"I've written something like 17 novels, which isn't bad, I suppose, but my father wrote 120 books, my mother 40. In comparison, I'm lazy."
"I feel as if someone is going to come along, feel my collar and say: 'Do you really think you can get people to read books you've made up about people that don't exist?'"
"Whining writers are a hideous sight; we should really shut up, because we are lucky if we can cobble together a living from all of this."
"Bringing my two children up while writing was just a part of life. I'd much rather have had their interruptions than been stuck in a sterile office. This way, I had welcome distractions. I had to load the washing machine, I had to go out and buy lemons."
"Don't start writing your novel until you know your characters very, very well. What they'd do if they saw somebody shoplifting. What they were like at school. What shoes they wear. Spend days - weeks, months - being them until they thicken up and start to breathe."
"Psych yourself up until you're confident that the world will be interested in what happens to your characters. Confidence is key."
"Writing a novel is a huge adventure; when it's going well it's more fun than fun. When it stutters to a halt put it aside. Go for a swim, go for a walk, take a week off. Don't panic or be afraid; you and your characters are in it together. Trust them to come to your rescue."
"Discover the times when you're most creative - mornings, nights, afternoons - and clear the time to work then. Many writers find the mornings are best, and the afternoons are only good for editorial corrections, or getting the washing done. Others can only work through the night, drunk."
"I'm always running my mouth off and getting myself in trouble, so I'm trying to do it less."
"It's not a failure if a marriage or partnership ends after a certain number of years. I think, in general, we expect too much of partners. We can't fulfil a person's every single need and, after ten years or so, many relationships wear out. If we were more philosophical about it, we wouldn't try to blame the other person or be bitter."
"I was never a lonely child who sat looking at the rain sliding down the window."
"Men take much more notice of older women in France, so I might move there. I think I'm a good bet."
"I'm quite easy to live with and very easy going."
"I am a great believer in having the power to end your life and knowing that, in extremis, you can. But I would not want to involve anybody else in my actions if it could imperil them."
"If people want to take their lives and are helped to do so, the punishment is tragic for all concerned."
"One sees more and more people who are miserable and demented and you feel it would be both kind and wise to leave them a few pills."
"My perfect day is to work incredibly well in the morning and write something wonderful, then take the dog for a walk and go for a swim in the ladies' ponds on Hampstead Heath or work in my allotment. Then I get tarted up in the evening and go out in London to dinner or the cinema."
"I'm mad about gardening. I have an allotment on the other side of Hampstead Heath, and I keep three hens in my garden."
"I look in the mirror expecting to be 34 and see someone who is 58. What's that all about? I haven't even thought about turning 60 yet, but so many of my friends have celebrated it by now that it's lost its terror. And I don't mind being 58; it's just such a surprise when one doesn't feel it at all."
"My favourite room in my house is easily the top room, which is a bedroom but also a bathroom, with a big, wooden carved bath, two huge fireplaces and a raised bit in the corner for performances. I've had some really lovely parties and poetry readings up there."
"I wanted to be a landscape architect, but I trained as a teacher; I worked in publishing; I was a waitress."
