You know, I really wish now I'd had the nerve to become an actor. Because I'd have been Robert Redford, no question.

I don't want to be separate from something that's important to me.

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.

For me,the greater part of writing is daydreaming, dreaming the dream of my story until it hatches out-the writing down of it I always find hard.But I love finishing it,then holding the book in my hand and sharing my dream with my readers.

Live an interesting life. Meet people. Read a lot and widely, learn from the great writers

But try as I might, I never got to eat any of her pastries, and do you know, she never even offered me one.

If it is possible to be happy in the middle of a nightmare, then Topthorn and I were happy that summer.