I did feel when my mother died if anyone was going to haunt me it would be her. And she hasn't, so I think it is possibly the end.

She was a terrible mother, there was no doubt about it, but she didn't even have the strength to feel guilty.

Fairy tales opened up a door into my imagination - they don't conform to the reality that's around you as a child. I started reading when I was three and read everything, but I wanted to be an actress.

In the end, it is my belief, words are the only things that can construct a world that makes sense.

Alternate history fascinates me, as it fascinates all novelists, because 'What if?' is the big thing.

Julia's vocabulary was "chock-full" of strangely archaic words - "spiffing," "crumbs," "jeepers" - that seemed to have originated in some prewar girls' annual rather than in Julia's own life. For Jackson, words were functional, they helped you get to places and explain things. For Julia, they were freighted with inexplicable emotion.

You can step in the same river but the water will always be new.