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" Once, every woman owned a small mirrored compact, and it was considered normal - sophisticated even - to flip it open to discreetly check for things like nose-glow or lipstick smudge. "

Laurie Graham

Lipstick

Normal

Open

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" My go-to author for knowing it all is Evelyn Waugh. 'A Handful of Dust' is as perfect as a book can get. "

" My husband is stricken with dementia, and it's a trick of his condition that events and people from his past are more real to him than what happened five minutes ago. "

" My research process doesn't vary much. I do a little reading to establish a timeline and decide how I'm going to approach the story. "

" People invade your space and offend your sensibilities because, to be plain, they couldn't care less about you. "

" In grief, after even the happiest of relationships, we go over things again and again. "

Laurie Graham

Relationships

Grief

" The wheels of publishing never slow down. "

" I've always jealously guarded my feminine mystique. I've been married twice, and neither of my husbands has ever seen me put my face on. "

" I'm married to an American, so I guess that has changed my perspective on the subjects I can write about. "

" With Alzheimer's, recent memory is affected first. At the start, you count the memory loss in days, then hours - then in minutes. But there's also an insidious backward creep of deterioration. "

" Even professional, paid carers aren't always models of saintly behaviour - and they know they can knock off at the end of their shift to go home, take an uninterrupted shower, and have a normal conversation with someone. "

" Not so very long ago, certainly well into the Thirties, a lady companion was a normal feature of life for widows or lone spinsters. "

" I speak pretty fluent American, though I do so with a strong British accent, and I love America: The scale and the variety of it are astonishing to someone not born there, and I'm convinced that its energy and generosity have somehow rubbed off on me and affected my writing. For the better. "

Laurie Graham

Strong

Generosity

" My parents never told me I was beautiful, and for one very good reason. I wasn't. When your child is a tubby, bespectacled little oddity, as I was, it's important not to give them false expectations. "

" Being eye candy always was a short-term career, and here's the reason. The world finds young women more attractive than old women because youthfulness signals fertility. "

" Times may have changed, but there are some things that are always with us - loneliness is one of them. "

" I have but one rule at my table. You may leave your cabbage, but you'll sit still and behave until I've eaten mine. "

" When my children were young, one of the treats promised by their grandparents was a ride in Grandad's car. "

" My preferred style is to write in first person, so I always have to play around with possible narrator voices until I find something that works. "

" Characters develop as the book progresses, but any that start to bore me end up in the wastepaper basket. In real life, we may have to put up with tedious people, but not in novels. "

Laurie Graham

End

Life

" Sorry, I don't do castles. I hate those winding turret stairs. "

" Dementia is quite unlike cancer or heart disease or any of those other conditions where you bargain with God for a cure or even just a bit more time. "

" I was fascinated by the culture clash between England and America in the 1950s. My first memories are of being a girl in those post-war years when things were really pretty grim. It wasn't like that in America, which was real boom time. "

" I think my mother was baffled by me. We were polar opposites. She was shy and retiring. I was over-fond of the limelight. Many times in my life, I was conscious of embarrassing her with my carrying on. "

Laurie Graham

Mother

Life

" I'd like to see my grandchildren climb trees, not stand under them. I'd like to see them learn to make bread and brown it over a fire using my toasting fork. "

" The word 'carer' makes me think of someone with a nylon overall and a long list of 'clients' to wash before she finishes her shift. A companion was something unique. A kind of live-in friend. "

Laurie Graham

Think

Long

" My husband is leaving me. No dramas, no slammed doors - well, OK, a few slammed doors - and no suitcase in the hall, but there is another woman involved. Her name is Dementia. "

" None of us wants to be reminded that dementia is random, relentless, and frighteningly common. "

Laurie Graham

Dementia

Common

" Childhood doesn't have to be perfect, and children don't have to be beautiful. From a bit of grit may grow a pearl, and if pearl production doesn't materialise, the outcome will still be preferable to the shallowness of vanity. "

" The thing about praising beauty is that good looks are an unforgiving task- master, a Forth Bridge of a maintenance job. The passing years present their accounts. Younger models become available. "

" I've been lucky enough to travel widely. When you're based in Europe, it's very easy to go to Madrid or Budapest for the weekend. I also lived in Italy for ten years and now live in Ireland. "