Let me say first that reading is my favorite pastime, bar none. If I couldn't read, I don't know what I'd do. But as a writer, it's both a blessing and a curse. You absorb technique as you go along.

Writing seems to be the only profession people imagine you can do by thinking about doing it.

The truth is that when you're writing a novel you're really living in it; you're living in the house, and you're living in the town.

I always have music on unless I'm reading aloud, which I always do before I hand anything in. It's the only way to know if a sentence really works, without clunks or cul-de-sac clauses.

Jane Austen may not be the best writer, but she certainly writes about the best people. And by that I mean people just like me.

Adolescence is a tough time for parent and child alike. It is a time between: between childhood and maturity, between parental protection and personal responsibility, between life stage- managed by grown-ups and life privately held.

For most of my life the only ceremonies I've been to at which women were the stars were weddings. So I like weddings.