sometimes you don't need a goal in life, you don't need to know the big picture. you just need to know what you're going to do next!

I hurl the glass teapot to the ground. we both stare at it, stunned. "it was supposed to break," I explain after a pause, " and that was going to signify that yes, I would throw something away . If I knew it wasn't right for me.

I don't think anyone sits down and thinks, 'I know, I'll be a chick-lit writer.' You write the book that you want to write and then other people say, 'Oh, that's chick-lit.' You say, 'Okay.' But it's not like you look around and go to a careers fair and there will be someone at the chick-lit author stand.

I don't speak Japanese, I don't know anything about Japanese business or Japanese culture. Apart from sushi. But I can't exactly go up to him and say "Sushi!" out of the blue. It would be like going up to a top American businessman and saying, "T-bone steak!

Darling, when things go wrong in life, you lift your chin, put on a ravishing smile, mix yourself a little cocktail.

It's a GIRL. It's a little girl, with scrunched-up petal lips and a tuft of dark hair and hands in tiny fits, up by her ears. All that time, that's who was in there. And it's weird, but the minute I saw her I just thought: IT'S YOU. Of course it is.

When I'm on a break from writing, I'll log on to Amazon and eBay. The doorbell is constantly being rung by deliverymen.