I've been very lucky and I have a happy old age with good family and friends still around.

I don't have ugly ducklings turning into swans in my stories. I have ugly ducklings turning into confident ducks.

I try to make my characters kind of ordinary, somebody that anybody could be. Because we've all had loves, perhaps love and loss, people can relate to my characters.

Nobody is ordinary if you know where to look.

I'm an escapist kind of writer.

Women who start out as ugly ducklings don't become beautiful swans. What they mainly become is confident ducks. They take charge of their lives.

The whole art of life is knowing the right time to say things.

Always write as if you are talking to someone. It works. Don't put on any fancy phrases or accents or things you wouldn't say in real life.

If you don't go to a dance you can never be rejected but you'll never get to dance either.

Because I saw my parents relaxing in armchairs and reading and liking it, I thought it was a peaceful grown-up thing to do, and I still think that.

We are all the heroes and heroines of our own lives. Our love stories are amazingly romantic; our losses and betrayals and disappointments are gigantic in our own minds.

Too often in my life, love has been defined as "humiliation with occasional roses".

All I ever wanted is you, Miss Zarish, ” he said while pulling her closer to himself.

The pursuit of eternity is no longer the prerogative of the gods - it is the business of us all, here and now.

I had done a lot of reading, relative for a kid, about World War Two, and I thought about Chamberlain a lot.

It's better to be hated than ignored.

I didn't accomplish what I set out to do, but I realized I had set out to do the wrong things

A person's life is what their thoughts make it.

Teachers literally break down at the thought that if their students have a bad a test day, their job is on the line.

If I cry, it's because I'm very angry and I can't do anything about it because I've run into a dead end. That's when the tears would come down.

I used to do my Nelson Mandela voice to blag restaurant tables in Cape Town. It rarely worked. Now what a great city that is.