I write in the novel's afterword that our recent wars "finish not with victory or defeat but with a calendar draw-down date and a presumption that we shall never be reconciled with the enemy".

Our own personal brand of courage - in relationships, in conflict, in our principles ­ - is as unique as our fingerprints.

Life is extremely short and you cannot dance to current affairs.

I like to push characters to extremes so they have to make really tough decisions and there is no life more extreme than that of an athlete.

This is the forked tongue of grief again. It whispers in one ear: return to what you once loved best, and in the other ear it whispers, move on.

I'm not happy with just repeating myself.

I planned how I would kill myself in the time of Churchill (stand under bombs), Victoria (throw myself under a horse), and Henry the Eighth (marry Henry the Eighth)- Little Bee