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" I knew I wasn't the sort of person who could do a full-time job and write in the evening and at weekends. "

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" 'Ralph's Party' was supposed to be a psychological thriller, but I fell in love with all my characters and wanted only the best for them. "

" My mother died in 2005. She was 61 years old. "

" My marriage is far from perfect. We're not hand-holdy and soft. We are snippy and bickery. We sleep in separate beds because we have no tolerance of each other's night-time idiosyncrasies. "

" I don't think my first book was chick lit. "

" You feel undervalued when you write the kind of fiction I write. "

" I tried to write about my first marriage in a fictional version but got two pages into it and realised it was too personal. Then I came up with an old-fashioned love triangle, which became the plot for 'Ralph's Party.' "

" I married someone I didn't love. I was too polite to say no. "

" I always wanted to write psychological thrillers. "

" People say 'chick lit,' and what they mean is 'crap.' And so even though you might sell 100,000 copies of a book, you're never going to win a prize. These are books that people don't just read, they devour them - they stay up into the early hours because they want to devour them. "

" In 1995, I was 27, and I completely got caught up in Blur and Oasis and the fashion of the time. "

" My parents' marriage was, on an aesthetic level, very pleasing to behold. "

" I write in cafes, never at home. I cannot focus at home, am forever getting off my chair to do other things. In a cafe, I have to sit still, or I'll look a bit unhinged. "

" I must always, always have a box of Extra chewing gum in my bag because I have developed a terrible cheek-chewing compulsion. It's not only uncomfortable, but I look really weird when I'm doing it, and chewing gum is the only way I can stop myself. "

" I don't really get into a writing routine until March or April, when I'll write a few hundred words a day, often in a cafe in the morning after the school run. "

" It wasn't until I was 23 and got married to a guy who was really bookish that I got completely hooked on reading and writing again. He had so many paperbacks, I didn't have to buy a book for four and a half years. "

" My first husband dragged me out of London and made me live in the suburbs in Surrey - not where you want to be when you're 23. "

" I changed my mind about being a famous pop star when I realised that it meant I'd never be able to get on the Tube again. "

" If you feel that your father was lacking as a husband, it affects your own choice of man. "

" When we were kids, we couldn't wait to have our own rooms, not to have to share anymore. And that is what I love about having my own bedroom. It is mine. My sleep is mine. Both pillows are mine. If I wake up, it is me who has woken me up... It makes me feel like a grown-up. I love it. "

" My mother was born on February 8, 1944, in Lucknow, India. Her father, Albert, was half-Indian and half-Portuguese. "

" All my main characters have got bits of me, bits of my family, bits of my friends. "

" Every time I've written a book, I'm like, 'Oh, it's so different from the last one. Are they going to like it?' "

" There are people out there who would enjoy my books but wouldn't pick them up because they think it's not going to be for them. I find it infuriating.There's a lot more going on in my books than just romance. "

" I was made redundant from a job as a PA in a shirt-making company in 1996. I was devastated. I had been there for three years, and it was a job I really liked. "

" I take the six weeks of the school summer holidays off because I'm pretty sure I'm not going to look back on my life one day and say, 'Damn, I wish I hadn't spent so much time with my children.' "

" When I travel, I can leave everything at home apart from books. I curate my holiday reading rigorously and would be devastated if I found I'd left one at home. "

" Publishers have published women's fiction into a corner, and now we are all trying to punch our way out of it. We just have to write the best books we possibly can and hope that, once the pink covers and Bridget Jones have faded from memory, we might finally be allowed just to be called writers. "

" I would never, for the sake of the story or a twist, have a character do something that they just wouldn't do. I really couldn't. I'd rather miss out on the twist. "

" When I was a little girl, I was a real, drippy bookworm. But when I went into fashion, I stopped reading. "

" If you can start and finish a book, then you're already a million miles ahead of all those people who talk about wanting to write a book. "