To say that Agatha Christie’s characters are cardboard cut-outs is an insult to cardboard cut-outs.

I can't exist without books.

the English, although partakers in the most variable and quixotic climate in the world, never become used to its vagaries, but comment upon them with shock and resentment as if all their lives had been spent in the predictable monsoon.

there must be a routine to life, a framework to hang life on. Routines were what kept you sane, gave you something to do at this moment and at that, definite places to go, positive things to do. Abandon it and that way madness lies.

I really do literally put myself into a character's shoes.

Ten thousand years of civilization shed in an instant when you put a woman behind the wheel of a car.

I think about death every day - what it would be like, why it would happen to me. It would be humiliating to be afraid.