We can learn so much looking outside our core field of expertise.

It is through our extended family that we first learn to compromise and come to an understanding that even if we don't always agree about things we can still love and look out for each other.

I always thought that bagels and lox was my soul food, but it turns out it's sushi.

Something I notice speaking to writers from south of Hadrians Wall is that the culture is different. At base, I think Scotland values its creative industries differently from England.

I jealously guard my research time and I love fully immersing myself in those dusty old books and papers. It's one of the most enjoyable parts of my job.

The sky was a sparkling succession of black diamonds on black velvet made crystal clear by the blackout.

I believe the era of the militant lady is back.

Without archives many stories of real people would be lost, and along with those stories, vital clues that allow us to reflect and interpret our lives today.

Research material can turn up anywhere - in a dusty old letter in an archive, a journal or some old photographs you find in a charity shop.

Writers of novels live in a strange world where what's made up is as important as what's real.

Books have a vital place in our culture. They are the source of ideas, of stories that engage and stretch the imagination and most importantly, inspire.

The person doing the learning is the person writing the book as much as the person reading it.

My greatest fear is that the audience will beat me to the punch line.

Men's requirements of women are impossible and ridiculous and so destructive.

I hope that books don't go the way of albums and CD, large format albums, and physical product.

I hope this is the lesson we women really commit to memory - we learned that it doesn't work to try be someone other than who you really are.

Sensibility is the power of woman.

Bullies are just ignorant.

I finished my career the way I wanted to.

The best of artists hath no thought to show which the rough stone in its superfluous shell doth not include; to break the marble spell is all the hand that serves the brain can do.

Most books, like their authors, are born to die; of only a few books can it be said that death has no dominion over them; they live, and their influence lives forever.