You can't throw away years of your life because it makes a funny anecdote.

I am not up to this. I am not capable. I thought I would be, but I'm not. Some part of me is missing, and I cannot do this.

For some time now she has had the conviction that life is about to change if only because it must. . . .

Better by far to be good and courageous and bold and to make difference. Not change the world exactly, but the bit around you

I think I became a writer because I used to write letters to my friends, and I used to love writing them. I loved the idea that you can put marks on a page and send it off, and two days later, someone laughs somewhere else in the world.

I had made this mistake once before, on a school trip to the Victoria and Albert Museum, when I followed a sign marked WOMEN, thinking it was an exhibition on the changing roles of women in society, and actually ended up standing in the ladies' toilets.

Just kidding' was exactly what people wrote when they meant every word.