I'm spectacularly disorganised. I wrote my latest book in seven different notebooks scattered throughout my house.

Will you lie to me and promise to read them? Books need to be read. The pages need to be turned.

Yes, I hate it when people call me a 'national treasure'. It takes away your bite and makes you feel like a harmless old golden Labrador.

Love is the only thing that keeps me sane.

I married two weeks after my 18th birthday, far too young, and by the time I was 23 I was a single mother of three small children, Sean, Daniel and Victoria, living in a prefab house.

Most social problems could be helped or prevented if people had more money and practical advice.

I don't know why women are so mad about flowers. Personally, they leave me cold. I prefer trees.

Every time I start a new piece of work, I spend a long while under the duvet thinking I can't do it.

There's only one thing more boring than listening to other people's dreams, and that's listening to their problems.

I think we take it for granted that if you are with your husband after 30 years, then he is the love of your life.

I am from the working class. I am now what I was then. No amount of balsamic vinegar and Prada handbags could make me forget what it was like to be poor.

A house is never small or empty, when filled with love.

During your struggle society is not a bunch of flowers, it is a bunch of cactus.

Killing animals to make a fashion statement = a sickening + cold-blooded vanity.

We are always searching for a cave to fit in.

There was more data transmitted over the Internet in 2010 than the entire history of the Internet through 2009.

Inner Forgiveness is therapeutic. If you do not Forgive you cannot be Internally Healed. Forgiving heals the Soul.

The War office kept three sets of figures - one to mislead the public, another to mislead the cabinet and the third to mislead itself.

Become a possibilitarian. No matter how dark things seem to be or actually are, raise your sights and see possibilities -- always see them, for they're always there.

You need to find a way to propel this creativity to the masses. People get brainwashed and they start to forget what's good.

I prefer to break new ground, but it gets harder and harder with the territory that's already been walked on.