If something is worth doing you may as well go heart and soul and boot leather.

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

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.

A lot of dyslexic kids are actually more intelligent than average and are very good, because they've got very good memories, at disguising the fact that they can't read or have got problems in reading and literacy.

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

We need to actually teach kids that books aren't like broccoli. You don't have to eat every bit on your plate. It's like secret adult's business. It's the secret we never, ever tell our children. No adult ever read a book because it's good for us. We read because it is fun.

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