It was the month of May and there was warm sunshine dripping through the holes between the clouds, like the sky was a broken blue bowl and a child was trying to keep honey in it.

Studying psychology is fun because you're always looking for the same things I think a writer should be looking for, which is the story behind the story.

Would we be the heroes or the cowards of the piece? Would we follow orders or stick to our principles, if those two things ever conflicted? Would we be the brave ones who still found the capacity for love - and for laughter - even while we were terrified?

It is easier for a rich person to act on their principles than it is for someone with fewer choices (which is why it is all the more disappointing when a wealthy person plays to the crowd).

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.

A scar is never ugly. That is what the scar makers want us to think. A scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, I survived.

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