I hate stereotypes and I hate cliche.

Homeopathy seemed . . . both mathematical and poetic.

It's not even a question of whether the universe is meaningful or meaningless. It's in what way could it be meaningful, or in what way, if it was meaningful, could that be even more meaningless than normal meaninglessness?

One minute I was playing chess and doing maths all the time, the next I had been rerouted into more 'normal' girls' activities: reading, writing stories and worrying about my clothes.

In some ways I'm a frustrated scientist or mathematician. The amount of times I've thought I'd go back to university and do theoretical physics because I like the big questions, but really I know now that that's not quite me. What's me is to do it in novels.

The sky was the colour of sad weddings.

My novels are high concept. I guess big ideas interest me more than, say, the minutiae of domestic life.