I've certainly seen stats that if you have a woman director or a woman screenwriter, the number of female characters goes way up.

I read a lot of social history. If I'm in an art gallery and a picture intrigues me, I immediately write down the title and I google it. I do a lot of googling and looking out for good stories. I can almost smell them sometimes.

I think about Old Nick carrying me into the truck, I'm dizzy like I'm going to fall down. "Scared is what you're feeling," says Ma, "but brave is what you're doing." "Huh?" "Scaredybrave." "Scave." Word sandwiches always make her laugh but I wasn't being funny.

The way to my heart is through Belgian milk chocolate.

The world is always changing brightness and hotness and soundness, I never know how it's going to be the next minute.

I was not exploiting any real individual's story in writing ROOM, of course I was aware that my novel, by commenting on such situations, would run the risk of falling into those traps of voyeurism, sensationalism and sentimentality.

There may be certain genres that men dominate, but fiction not so much. The question of prizes is tricky because there are so many prizes.