The only way to write a book, I’m fond of telling people, is to actually write a book. That’s how you write a book.

Having kids is very difficult to do on your own, and it's really crazy difficult to think you're doing it as a team and to find out that you're not actually part of a team.

Sometimes I will spend two or three days not speaking to anyone outside of the immediate family when they come home, and then I find that I've been emailing like fury. Once you give in to that silence, it's quite nice.

I love the characters not knowing everything and the reader knowing more than them. There's more mischief in that and more room for seriousness, too.

I write anywhere - when I have an idea it’s hard not to write. I used to be kind of precious about where I wrote. Everything had to be quiet and I couldn’t be disturbed, it really filled my day.

I think young children in the Western middle classes are objects of incredible anxiety.

I have no place left to live but in my own heart.