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" 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.' "

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" People with big ideas worry. They lie awake at night and fret as they try to climb up the social or financial ladder. They probably feel proud of themselves for what they've achieved, but I'm proud of the fact that I've done very little - and hence have little to worry about - and I've still got somewhere. "

Lisa Jewell

Night

Proud

People

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

" 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. "

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

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

" 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. "

" There's something uniquely unsettling about the unhinged woman on a single-minded mission. Especially when she's the last person you ever imagined to harbour a dark and seething soul. "

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

" 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. "

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

" My husband loves having his own room. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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?' "

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

Lisa Jewell

Got

Characters

" 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. "

" I am a terrible, terrible typist. I could not have been a writer in the age of typewriters. "

Lisa Jewell

Been

Age

" 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. "

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

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

" I am the oldest of three girls and the only one not named after one of my father's ex-girlfriends. "

Lisa Jewell

Oldest

Three

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" I was brought up in the same house I was born in, and I lived there until I left home as an adult. I also went to a Catholic school, which was full of Irish girls whose parents never split up, so everyone I knew had these big family set-ups. "

" I always wanted to write psychological thrillers. "