I like stirring the pot - I think it's part of my duty, to shake people up a bit - make them look at things in a different way.

I like writing for children. It seems to me that most people underestimate their understanding and the strength of their feelings and in my books for them I try to put this right.

I am not a victim. I am an angry survivor.

All writers are liars. They twist events to suit themselves. They make use of their own tragedies to make a better story... They are terrible people.

All writers are thieves; theft is a necessary tool of the trade.

One good reason for writing novels based on your life is that you have something to read in old age when you've forgotten what happened.

A writer's work may be a coded autobiography, but only a very close friend could decipher it.

People's lives are in the care of the railways when they get on a train. The railways should remember that.

I met Richard Burton, an RAF cadet on a two-term course. I would have flirted more enthusiastically if it had not been for the horrid boils on the back of his neck.

I dislike the word 'victim.' I dislike being told that I 'lost' my husband - as if I had idly abandoned you by the side of the railway track like an unwanted pair of old shoes.

I wanted to be a war reporter - scrabbling around, exposing things. I didn't want to go to university, I wanted to get a job, but Auntie Beryl said I should go to Oxford.

My family was too precious to forget, and too rare to replace.

Everyone who loves risks losing their heart every minute of every day.

This new form of dialogue that is bringing us to the art to which I have dedicated my life, is rooted in the deepest and most beautiful part of being human.

From some tiny portion of the wealth the west accumulated in a hundred years of filling the atmosphere with carbon.

No one messes around with a nerd's computer and escapes unscathed.

If you're not living a life on the edge you're taking up too much space! ... You learn the most when you're out of your comfort zone!

I dressed and went for a walk - determined not to return until I took in what Nature had to offer.

I don't like to be away from my family for long periods.

You cannot, I repeat, successfully acquire it and preserve your modesty at the same time.

The chance for mistakes is about equal to the number of crew squared.