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

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

" I never had one of those glorious young bodies that make older men and women weep. So I don't tend to look back with nostalgia or yearn for what I've lost. Because it was never all that. "

" 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. "

" 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.' "

" 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. "

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

" 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 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. "

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

" There's a weird contrast between my usual daily routine and then my book coming out. It's like someone's just suddenly opened the curtains in a dark room, and everyone's looking at you. "

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

" No man ever fell in love with me for the way I fill out a Lycra dress. "

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

" 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. "

" 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 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. "

" 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. "

" 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 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. "

" Writing a book is not easy. "

" 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?' "

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

" Ever since 'Single White Female,' the 1990 novel which was turned into a supremely scary film, the idea of a seemingly normal woman who will stop at nothing to get what she wants has become an abiding literary trope. "

" 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. "

" For a very long time, I thought everyone I met through the process of getting an agent and a publishing deal had made a mistake. When they agreed to pay me for the book, I thought they would ask me for the money back. "

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

" My father was a self-employed textile agent, and the shop below his office was an art gallery. "

" 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. "