Our minds can come up with the most entertaining possibilities, if we let them. But most of the time, we keep them under far too close a check.

Lou knew that joy unshared was a halved emotion, just as sadness and loss, when borne alone, were often doubled.

Daughters could survive a powerful mother, but boys found it almost impossible. Such boys were often severely damaged and spent the rest of their lives running away from their mothers, or from anybody who remotely reminded them of their mothers; either that, or they became their mothers, in a desperate, misguided act of psychological self defence.

I just focus on getting the first scene right, with a few lines about the overall plot, and then the book grows organically.

Many of my books are written from a female perspective. I rather enjoy the take that women have on the world, and certainly I enjoy the conversations that women have.

We need to believe I think in justice. We need to run our lives as if justice existed... If we abandon a belief that justice will eventually be done, we make this world much more difficult for ourselves.

When you allow people to do what they wish, then that is what they do. They stop doing the things they need to do.