My life isn't much different than when I worked full time as a journalist.

Some authors, when starting a novel, imagine a place first. Others, a character starts taking shape in their head. I start with a hook, a situation, a 'what if.

I was filling entire school notebooks with stories by Grade 3. Of course, they were double-spaced, and the handwriting was huge.

Facebook, from what I can tell, is the virtual equivalent of dropping into the homes of several million people, all of whom say at the same time: 'Hey! Let's set up the slide projector!

Sometimes, it's easier to tell a stranger something very personal. It's like there's less risk, opening yourself up to someone who doesn't know you.

All the places my mind took me were places I did not want to go.

It's hard to make things right for everyone.""But if everybody helped just one person, lots of people would get helped.

In joined hands there is still some token of hope, in the clinched fist none.

Intelligence is composed mostly of imagination, insight, things that have nothing to do with reason.

But who ever yet was offered a secret and declined it? Who at least ever declined a love secret? What sister could do so?

Most personalities have been obliged to be rebels. Half their strength has been wasted in friction.

In my life, I've seen enormous increase in the consumption of poetry. When I was young, there were virtually no poetry readings.

Thatcher came under pressure from right wing backbenchers to shut up the Prince of Wales and there was a deal done between them where he did actually shut up in the end.

With stand-up, there's a little bit of an exaggerated reality because things have to be manipulated to create comedy, to create jokes.

I learnt from Flo how to be mother. Flo was patient, tolerant. She was supportive. She was always there. She was playful. She enjoyed having her babies, as good mothers do.

It is only the first baby that takes up the whole of a woman's time.Five or six do not require nearly so much attention as one.

To write about someone like myself would be very limiting.