You can't lay down laws for what people think and hope.

I'm an escapist kind of writer.

Money doesn't make you happy, but it gives a zone of comfort around you.

An English journalist called Michael Viney told me when I was 25, that I would write well if I cared a lot what I was writing about. That worked. I went home that day and wrote about parents not understanding their children as well as we teachers did, and it was published the very next week.

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.

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

I've seen a lot of people buy my books and then fall asleep on the plane soon afterwards.