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" I look about my house and see there are lots of lovely things in it, but I constantly buy more. "

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" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" Don't do a hard sell or try to tell the agent that you're going to be a bestseller or the next John Grisham. This goes down very badly. If your work is good, then they are skilled enough to know this within a few pages. "

" 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 like the fact that my husband and I have been together for a long time and have a warm and colourful history together. "

" My mother's childhood was complex, disjointed, and disturbing. As children, we would gather round and ask her to tell us again and again The Story of Her Childhood. It was Grimmsian, Andersenesque: a classic fairy tale replete with goodies and baddies. "

" My publishers find me really challenging, as a lot of the time, I don't even know what I'm going to be writing about until I sit down to do it. "

" 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. "

" If you have a calling, you need to let it find you. "

" Writing a book is not easy. "

" 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. "

" Everyone thinks they've got a book inside them. "

" My husband loves having his own room. "

" Whenever I watch any kind of competition, my immediate reaction when they call out the name of the winner is to look at the loser. "

" 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. "

" A strange side effect of sudden success is the sense that if you can succeed in one field, then it might well be worth trying to succeed in another. "

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

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

" Flowers would be wasted on me. I don't like valentines. I don't need gifts. I'm a pragmatic romantic. "

" 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. "

" The only way you can write about a happy family in a drama is to make them unhappy. "

" 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?' "

" Getting married young was the worst experience of my life. It was horrible - really horrible. "

" Every brilliant book I read is an influence and an inspiration. As is every brilliant movie I watch and every brilliant box set. "

" My father, Anthony, was a textile agent who sold fabric in the West End and was away a lot. He was very glamorous. When he first met my mum, he swept her off into this big, social world. "

" Agents and publishers are always looking for something 'different,' a fresh viewpoint and a new voice, not just re-hashed versions of stuff that's gone before. "

" If one of my romantic-comedy colleagues had written and directed 'Love Actually,' they would have been torn limb from limb. I thought it was awful, contrived, dreadful. I could see every twist and turn. I thought it was despicable. It was the writing that got me. "

" That whole idea of chick lit being a thing that you just lump all the commercial female writers into - it went on for years.I'd switch on the radio, and I'd hear, 'Two female authors are here to discuss chick lit - is it dead?' and I'd think, 'Argh, no, not again. Are we seriously still having this conversation?' "

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