The song and dance didn't stop us dying. It just stopped the fear of death swallowing us up while we were still alive.

Often the true hero and heroines of my books are the houses, the places, the communities where people find a home.

I don't finish a lot of the books I read. I get enormous pleasure from reading half f them, two-thirds of them, even incredibly good books. But I don't feel it's my duty to finish them. I read the last few pages and find out what happens at the end.

For me books have always been an incredibly solid part of my life, both as escapism and simply as resource.

I might be able to find out what happened 6,000 years ago but I will never know what happens 6,000 years in the future! And that is not fair, blast it.

There is still in many schools complete misapprehension that children with reading difficulties are stupid. It is so easy to teach a child that they're dumb. There needs to be a recognition that you need different ways to teach children who have got reading problems.

I don't read like other people do - back and forth, across the page. I tend to scan a page at a time.