One of my extraordinary regrets about my death is not so much that it's going to happen but simply that I'll never know what happens next.

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

I've always found the world is the most extraordinarily fascinating place and the more data you get, the more you can actually put pieces into this jigsaw.

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

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'm very close to my parents. I admire them and respect them enormously. But my childhood unfortunately coincided with the end of their marriage. They are two people who should never, ever have got married.

When someone is missing the really hard thing is that you never really do give up hope, even though the inquest says that she is dead, even though right from the beginning we already knew that we wouldn't see her again.