I think the adverb is a much-maligned part of speech. Its always accused of being oppressive, even tyrannical, when in fact its so supple and sly.

I really wanted to write an adventure story, a murder-mystery that was set during the gold-rush years in New Zealand.

The way that I see astrology is as a repository of thought and psychology. A system we've created as a culture as way to make things mean things.

A woman fallen has no future; a man risen has no past.

I have observed that male writers tend to get asked what they think and women what they feel," she says. "In my experience, and that of a lot of other women writers, all of the questions coming at them from interviewers tend to be about how lucky they are to be where they are – about luck and identity and how the idea struck them. The interviews much more seldom engage with the woman as a serious thinker, a philosopher, as a person with preoccupations that are going to sustain them for their lifetime.

What’s the likelihood? That the one girl who makes my heart race is the one girl who wants me in return? That the accident of my attraction coincides with the accident of hers?

Never underestimate how extraordinarily difficult it is to understand a situation from another person's point of view.