Books aren't like broccoli. You don't have to eat it because it's good for you. Books drag you in because they are fascinating.

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.

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

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

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.

I'd love to see a new form of social security ... everyone taught how to grow their own; fruit and nut trees planted along every street, parks planted out to edibles, every high rise with a roof garden, every school with at least one fruit tree for every kid enrolled.

Books aren't like broccoli. You don't have to eat it because it's good for you. Books drag you in because they are fascinating.