I grew up with that completely fictive idea of motherhood, where the mother never strayed from the kitchen. All the women in my books are very afraid that if they do anything with their minds they won't be complete women. I don't think my daughters' generation has that feeling.

In England, everyone believes if you think, then you don't feel. But all my novels are about joining together thinking and feeling.

I think vestigially there's a synesthete in me but not like a real one who immediately knows what colour Wednesday is.

I don't understand why, in my work, writing is always so dangerous. It's very destructive. People who write books are destroyers.

They took to silence. They touched each other without comment and without progression. A hand on a hand, a clothed arm, resting on an arm. An ankle overlapping an ankle, as they sat on a beach, and not removed. One night they fell asleep, side by side... He slept curled against her back, a dark comma against her pale elegant phrase.

I don't like gurus. I don't like people who ask you to follow or believe. I like people who ask you to think independently.

Outside our small safe place flies mystery.