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.

If I had my life to live all over again, I really think I would have been a fit person. Looking around me, I realise that the men and women who walked and ran and swam and played sport look better and feel better than the rest of us.

You say to yourself: 'What could people, in all these countries, find in my books?' and yet I think we're all the same, anywhere. Everybody is a hero or a dramatic person in their own story if you just know where to look.

On the first day of school, my father told me I'd be the most popular girl and everyone would love me and want to be my friend. It wasn't so, but it gave me an enormous amount of confidence.

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.

Never mind money; the gifts of time and skill call into being the richest marketplace in the world.

The whole art of life is knowing the right time to say things.