You see, all that I ever held dear has been taken from me," she said in a matter-of-fact tone. "And when you've lost everything-" Her facade began to crumble, and her voice broke, but she made herself carry on. "When you've lost everything, you've got nothing to lose.

I aim to be translucent, so you don't notice the words, just their meaning. I haven't much insight into people's motivations.

Most of my stories have some basis in fact.

We all now tell stories by cutting from one dramatic scene to the next, whereas Victorian novelists felt free to write long passages of undramatic summary.

It was the most romantic plane ever made.

It's great that in the German language I've sold almost 30 million books. Isn't that amazing?

I want to tell a story that makes the reader always want to see what will happen next.