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

And we spend the rest of the evening getting very pissed and eating ice cream, as we always do when something good or bad happens to either one of us.

Being a journalist is good if you want to write books: it teaches you to get beyond the blank screen. My books have been described as froth but there's scope to be witty and ironic about everything in life.

I'm allergic to family occasions. Sometimes I think we'd do better as dandelion seeds-no family, no history, just floating off into the world, each on our own piece of fluff.

I love all my characters. I love their weaknesses and flaws. I feel like they're all my best friends and I adore being with them.

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!

My childhood was spent embracing one literary heroine after another. I identified passionately with each one and would slavishly imitate them.