Sometimes, when it is going badly, she wonders if what she believes to be a love of the written word is really just a fetish for stationary.

David Holdaway was my stage name. I was an actor for about eight years in the '90s. I had to change my name because there was another David Nicholls, and I thought if I changed it to my mother's name, she'd be touched.

As a matter of fact, I think there are more things important in life than "relationships.

If she does have a failing, and it's obviously only a tiny one, it's that she doesn't seem particularly curious about other people, or me, anyway.

I work three days at home, and two days in the British Library or the London Library, just to get out of the house and hide from the children.

Do you miss her?' 'Who? Emma? Of course. Every day. She was my best friend.

Welcome to the graveyard of ambition.