That's really what I want in a leader; I want somebody who's really, really smart.

I think that after a while you realize that your husband can't be all things to you and certainly you don't want the kids to be all things to you, because that would be a terrible weight for them; and that where you really find solace a lot of the time is with your girlfriends.

Your children make it impossible to regret your past. They're its finest fruits. Sometimes the only ones.

I've always had a certain facility with words.

Behind every door in London there are stories, behind every one ghosts. The greatest writers in the history of the written word have given them substance, given them life. And so we readers walk, and dream, and imagine, in the city where imagination found its great home.

My father really, really pushed me to excel in a way that I resented for years and then realized had really worked for me.

When children are small, parents should run their lives and not the other way around.