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

I'm named after Jane Austen's Emma, and I've always been able to relate to her. She's strong, confident but quite tactless.

Writing stories is my way of scratching that itch: my escape from the claustrophobia of individuality. It lets me, at least for a while, live more than one life, walk more than one path. Reading, of course, can do the same.

You cannot predict literary success; the only way you can possibly aim for it is to do your thing and do it well.

Maybe I’m a human, but I’m a me-and-Ma as well.

I've always been religiously inclined, but it doesn't come up in most of my books.

The paradox of publicity is that even as we do it, we know it's killing off the chance of another reader happening across our book in the ideal state of innocence.