Success is not like a cake that needs to be divided. It's more like a heap of stones - a cairn. If someone is successful, they add a stone to the cairn. It gets very high and can be seen from all over the world. That's how I see it.

If I see Marian Keyes' books or Patricia Scanlan's books given more prominence than mine in the bookstore, I'll move mine to the front. I've told them I do this, and they've confessed to doing the same thing to me.

I do try to live every day as if it were my last, and it has worked for me so far.

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.

I have been lucky enough to travel a lot, meet great people in many lands. I have liked almost everyone I met along the way.

I didn't have a sweet tooth, but I liked butter, and I liked sauces, and I liked wine and curry and cheeses.

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