I don't keep any copies of my books in the house - they go to my mum's flat. I don't like them around.

You can't state difference and also state equality. We have to state sameness to understand equality.

As far as I'm concerned, if you want to find out about the last day of WWII or the roots of the Indian Mutiny, get thee to a books catalogue.

The past is always tense, the future perfect.

Protect the time and space in which you write. Keep everybody away from it, even the people who are most important to you.

Every moment happens twice: inside and outside, and they are two different histories.

Don’t romanticise your ‘vocation’. You can either write good sentences or you can’t. There is no ‘writer’s lifestyle’. All that matters is what you leave on the page.

Time is how you spend your love.

I am the sole author of the dictionary that defines me.

Don't confuse honours with achievement.

Pulchritude--beauty where you would least suspect it, hidden in a word that looked like it should signify a belch or a skin infection.

Go slowly, so that you do not bite your tail by accident.

Spirituality gives strength of spirit.

Maybe the trying is the thing. Maybe it doesn't get better than that. Maybe you never quite get there. And maybe that's okay.

I grew up listening to Joni Mitchell's version of "A Case of You." My mom was a huge Joni Mitchell fan.

My sons last summer, they won a trophy from their surfing camp and they came home and went right over to the shelf and put it up next to my Oscar. That's where we put our trophies.

Somewhere we turn ourselves into victims instead of being the powerful women we really are meant to be.

Selecting a challenge and meeting it creates a sense of self-empowerment that becomes the ground for further successful challenges.

I began to write a kind of waltz and in a little more than an hour I had the theme written.

You only live once, and I just don’t want to waste a minute of my life.

I love the Asian countries.