I'm mainly an airport author, and if you're trying to take your mind off the journey, you're not going to read 'King Lear.'

I think I was dealt a good hand. I have happy genes.

I believed that old people never laughed. I thought they sighed a lot and groaned. They walked with sticks, and they didn't like children on bicycles or roller skates or with big dogs.

I'm a great will maker. I've made my will every year since I was 21.

I never wanted to write. I just wrote letters home from a kibbutz in Israel to reassure my parents that I was still alive and well fed and having a great time. They thought these letters were brilliant and sent them to a newspaper. So I became a writer by accident.

In my stories, whenever there's somebody wonderful and charming and bright and intelligent, that's me!

The biggest influence on my books was the fact that I had worked in a newspaper for so long. In a daily paper, you learn to write very quickly; there is no time to sit and brood about what you are going to say.