And every place and time an author writes about is imaginary, from Oz to Raymond Chandler's L.A. to Dickens's London.

I watched the entire O.J. Simpson trial, and he was guilty.

Perhaps that's how I should think of them, Polly thought, the troupe and Miss Snelgrove and Trot. And Sir Godfrey. Not as lost to her, but as removed to this moment in time for safekeeping.

There are some things worth giving up anything for, even your freedom, and getting rid of your period is definitely one of them.

TO ALL THE ambulance drivers firewatchers air-raid wardens nurses canteen workers airplane spotters rescue workers mathematicians vicars vergers shopgirls chorus girls librarians debutantes spinsters fishermen retired sailors servants evacuees Shakespearean actors and mystery novelists WHO WON THE WAR.

The reason Victorian society was so restricted and repressed was that it was impossible to move without knocking something over.

When you're a writer, the question people always ask you is, "Where do you get your ideas?" Writers hate this question. It's like asking Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen, "Where do you get your leeches?" You don't get ideas. Ideas get you.