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" Actors go inside the heads of other people and are not afraid of the complicated places you can find yourself. "

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" I went to see Dad in hospital after he had gone through one particularly grueling operation. I walked into the room where he was recovering, and he was sitting up in a chair, wearing his shirt and tie. That was after eight hours of surgery. I found that so moving. "

" I think lots of ideas are sometimes in our heads without us quite, you know, knowing it. "

" The characters in my stories all have quite loud lives in my head. It's a relief to get them on the page. Often they come from people I've noticed or overheard - but that is only a part of them. It's only by writing that I discover who these people really are. "

" 'Perfect' is about a set-up that looks perfect from the outside - beautiful country house, beautiful wife and mother, everything where it should be - and the deep fissures that, in fact, lie beneath that. 'Perfect' was partly a response to the shock of my first book, 'The Unlikely Pilgrimage Of Harold Fry,' being a success. "

" The story of Harold Fry and his unlikely pilgrimage began as an afternoon play for radio. For many years, I have been writing plays and adapting novels for 'Woman's Hour' and the 'Classic' series. So this was originally a three-hander play, broadcast one sunny afternoon on BBC Radio 4. "

" My father died in France, and my sisters and I went over with my mum to bring back his body. I remember going to the funeral parlour in France and being given a laminated menu of coffins, and thinking, surely there is an ice cream at the back of here! "

" I think I'm somebody who takes praise with a very big - probably too big - pinch of salt. "

" On television, it's all just shiny, successful people, and so I feel somebody has to wave a flag for the ordinary people who are not quite sure that they are getting it right. "

" I'm sure that everything you do contributes to the sort of novel that you write. A lot of actors have an understanding of drama and a good ear for dialogue and also the rhythm of speech. Similarly, my 16 years in radio drama has influenced me. You only have 45 minutes, or 7,000 words, to tell a story, so every scene has to have a point. "

" I have written stories since I was a child. "

" I like writing people from a slightly sharp angle and then throwing more light on them. I think in life we see somebody and make judgments very quickly about who they are and what they are. Or we think people are boring because they appear ordinary. "

" In writing about Harold and Maureen with their terrible unspoken secret, and all those people that Harold meets as he walks to save a friend's life, I was trying to celebrate the ordinary people. "

" We are quick to stick labels on others - especially those who don't fit in with the norm. 'Harold Fry' is about a broken marriage; 'Perfect' is about a broken person. They are both about finding kindness where you least expect it. "

" For me, writing is such an escape, and I felt very lucky to have this to run away to. "

" My dad was always busy. You would pop round for a cup of tea, and within minutes you would see him walking past with a step-ladder. He was always fixing things. "

" This is what I have discovered - and it has been a gift in itself - that books live over and over again in different people's minds. That I might mean one thing as I write, but a reader's experiences will take it somewhere else. That is like a conversation, I think. It is a true connecting up. "

" I went through a stage of writing my cramped hand in tiny books. My two sisters and I did have our Bronte period. My mum is from Yorkshire, and we would go up to the Moors. It tapped into our romantic visions of ourselves. "

" I'm drawn to people who find themselves on the outside of things. I'm moved by that in real life. "

" I find that very appealing: the blurring of the lines between what's funny and what's tragic. And what's ordinary and what's not - the big things in the small things. "

" My father had spent years fighting cancer of the head and neck. He had numerous operations, and he was reduced and reduced and reduced. By the end, he had a growth so big under his eye that it hurt to look at him. "

" I am not expecting anyone to feel sorry for me, but when friends ask how it feels to be a debut novelist who has also been long listed for the Man Booker prize, I have to admit that my response has confused me. I am so overwhelmed, so delighted, so honoured and so surprised, I have come out in a violent cold. "

" I think of myself as a very ordinary person. I like writing about the juxtaposition between people: the beauty of them at times and then the banal, everyday context in which we find ourselves. "

" Before I gave birth to Hope, I had a miscarriage. The pain was so enormous, I had to write myself out of it. I kept a diary and did not feel entirely complete until Hope was born. "