Admitting failure is quite cleansing, but never - pleasurable.

I was brought up, as a lot of kids are, on 'Aesop's Fables,' 'Brothers Grimm,' 'La Fontaine,' all those sorts of things. Hans Christian Andersen is a hero of mine.

Animals are sentient, intelligent, perceptive, funny and entertaining. We owe them a duty of care as we do to children.

Access to books and the encouragement of the habit of reading: these two things are the first and most necessary steps in education and librarians, teachers and parents all over the country know it. It is our children's right and it is also our best hope and their best hope for the future.

I got married young, far too young, but it is fine. We are still married 48 years later. I got married at 19.

A notion for a story is for me a confluence of real events, historical perhaps, or from my own memory to create an exciting fusion.

Wherever my story takes me, however dark and difficult the theme, there is always some hope and redemption, not because readers like happy endings, but because I am an optimist at heart. I know the sun will rise in the morning, that there is a light at the end of every tunnel.