One good reason for writing novels based on your life is that you have something to read in old age when you've forgotten what happened.

People who don't read seem to me mysterious. I don't know how they think or learn about other people. Novels are a very important part of our education.

I've never found it made the slightest difference being a woman - though there is a sort of feeling that as you get older you're not so interesting.

I met my second husband on a bus. We looked at each other and that was it. We were both married to other people at the time and behaved badly, but we didn't seem to have any choice. We were very happy for nearly 50 years and would still be together if it wasn't for the bloody railways.

All writers are thieves; theft is a necessary tool of the trade.

I am not a victim. I am an angry survivor.

Margaret Thatcher was in my year, and our first-year college photograph shows us standing side by side in the back row. We were both grammar school girls on state scholarships.