It's the face itself that I love, not that face at twenty-eight or thirty-four or forty-three. It's that face.

She shouldn't speak her thoughts; nothing good ever came of speaking your thoughts.

I know that for every reader who has lost the habit or can't find the time, there are people who've never enjoyed reading and question the value of literature, either as entertainment or education, or believe that a love of books, and of fiction in particular, is sentimental or frivolous.

She glanced at the other diners, all of them going into their act, and thought is this what it all boils down to? Romantic love, is this all it is, a talent show?

My 20s was a sea of worry. I worried about benefit forms, about being thrown out of my flat. I never went on holiday because I thought: 'What if an audition comes up?' I was a nervous wreck.

The fact was I loved my wife to a degree that I found impossible to express, and so rarely did.

The problem with all these fiercely individualistic girls was that they were all exactly the same.