A lot of people stop short. They don't actually die but they say, 'Right I'm old, and I'm going to retire,' and then they dwindle into nothing. They go off to Florida and become jolly boring.

I don't write for any particular kind of person.

My first husband would never make up his mind in less than five years, so I used to get him to think that whatever course of action needed to be taken was his idea. Then he'd go right ahead.

They may turn out to be a great disappointment, or perhaps they may be full of enchanting surprises.

Each marriage has to be judged separately, and we never know what's going on in another person's marriage.

In my eighties, my best friends are in their fifties, and I have many friends at university. It keeps one young, and up with the vocabulary. That's terribly important, especially for a writer.

Rebecca is an example of how not to manage men. The rules of the game never change, it requires subtlety.