For all the books in his possession, he still failed to read the stories written plain as day in the faces of the people around him.

I hate desks; they make me feel like a child doing homework.

Once I spent a whole day there, a blade of grass in each hand to anchor me to the warm earth. I watched the sun rise, pass over my head and set. Ladybirds mated on my knuckle; a shrew nibbled a hole in my stocking while I tried not to laugh. Such a day was worth any punishment.

Feminism is still one of those taboo words, so hardly anybody talks about it. People usually go gender-neutral and say the book and film [Room] are about "the triumph of the human spirit.

With my first book, I was hired to write a draft of the script. I was so young and less confident. They put me through seven or eight drafts and it was just getting worse and worse, and then the film was never made.

I wrote the novel [Room], and then I thought, "This could work on film, and I want to be the one to do it." So I went ahead and drafted it.

The way to my heart is through Belgian milk chocolate.