Jeez Louise. I know why rich people are so thin: it's from trekking around their humongous houses the whole time.

The great thing about being a novelist is that you organize your own day.

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.

It's like I'm thirteen again and he's my crush. All I'm aware of in this entire roomful of people is him. Where he is, what he's doing, who he's talking to.

I had no plans to be a writer. My teenaged bid for stardom was to be a pop star... which, ahem, didn't exactly work out.

Visiting any shop for the first time is exciting. There's always that buzz as you push open the door; that hope; that belief - that this is going to be the shop of all shops, which will bring you everything you ever wanted, at magically low prices.

You never know how things are going to turn out, however much you plan. But you already know that.