At the age of fifty-six Eleanor Stoddard was still a beautiful woman. She owned three hotels in France and another two in England. From nothing at all, she had built an empire. Eleanor had it all. Her one weakness was the young man sleeping beside her.

Love is a handful of seeds, marriage the garden, and like your gardens, Paula, marriage requires total commitment, hard work, and a great deal of love and care. Be ruthless with the weeds. Pull them out before they take hold. Bring the same dedication to your marriage that you do to your gardens and everything will be all right. Remember that a marriage has to be constantly replenished too, if you want it to flourish.

If anyone asks me whether I like being a popular writer, I ask them whether they think I'd rather be an unpopular writer.

Life was life. It happened. You never knew what was going to come at you. Or how you could defend yourself.

I am a huge admirer of Elizabeth I, and this intriguing biography gives a wonderful picture of the era.

Life always gets harder towards the summit - the cold increases, responsibility increases

We are each the authors of our own lives, Emma. We live in what we have created. There is no way to shift the blame and no one else to accept the accolades.