If I can't write it would be as if I died.

We leave it up to books and movies to talk about WWII on our behalf.

Sometimes we don't notice that someone is being brave, because they are only doing something that seems quite easy for us.

I think that there's something extremely beautiful about the Olympic ideal and its motto - 'Swifter, higher, stronger' - it's such a beautiful motto, and it celebrates everything which is the antithesis of death and dissolution and entropy.

Even for a girl like me, then, there comes a day when she can stop surviving and start living. To survive, you have to look good or talk good. But to end your story well-- here is the truth-- you have to talk yourself out of it.

I'm always determined that as a novelist I'm going to go out there and research my characters very thoroughly before I start writing.

At this point in time the war [ WWII] is close enough to still feel hotly personal to a writer, yet far enough away so that jingoism and heroics are no longer required.