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" People who have had a stroke and are recovering from it love being read to... especially by someone who is a good reader - it does help them to get better. "

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" I go to the House of Lords in the afternoon and try to walk halfway. I may be thinking about what I'm going to write. It's much more satisfying than sitting in a chair. "

" Both my parents had strokes. My father had several, but the last one was fatal. It's a horribly disabling bug, a stroke. "

" It's not necessary with your friends to discuss something you know you will disagree profoundly on. "

" I always write about what interests me. "

" 'The Chimney Sweeper's Boy' began differently from any previous book I'd written. It actually derives from a story a friend - the novel's dedicatee, Patrick Maher - told me. "

" Ford Maddox Ford's 'The Good Soldier' is my favourite novel. I first read it in the 1950s and have read it about 20 times since. It's possibly the best-constructed book in the English language. "

" I am curious about people. I want to know their secrets... because I am the last person to whom I would tell a secret; people tell me their secrets. "

" I have never been a foodie and am seldom very hungry. "

" I don't mind being distracted. I don't want to sit there in utter silence and type. If the phone rings, I usually answer it, speak for a few minutes and return to writing, or go for a walk in and out of the rooms. I don't mind a break. "

" I don't think the world is a particularly pleasant place. "

" People do sometimes ask me some really idiotic questions: 'Is your husband afraid of you putting arsenic in his food?' I replied that I have never written a book about poison, ever. "

" I believe the most important thing you can do in any kind of novel is to make your reader want to go on with it and want to know what happens next. "

" There are some novelists who can get away with writing about sex - Philip Roth, Ian McEwan - but they are rare. "

" I've never really been satisfied with a book. I always want it to be better. "

" It's absolutely essential to my life. I don't know what I would do if I didn't write. "

" I don't think there is a fictional character who resembles me because fictional characters are not real! "

" Hugh Grant will always be associated with his scandal, and so will Max Mosley. "

" Crimes are more often committed out of fear than wickedness. People live frightened, desperate lives. "

" I like to show what happens to people in the past and how it affects their present. "

" I don't exorcise anything with my writing. I'm sure people do, but I don't. "

" I always know when a novel is going to be a Barbara Vine one. In fact I believe that if I weren't to write it as Barbara Vine, I wouldn't be able to write it at all. "

" Haemophilia itself is bad enough. It is disabling day by day, even if far less incapacitating than in the 19th and early 20th centuries. But the added burden of life-threatening further illnesses from contaminated NHS blood is far worse. "

" Suspense is my thing. I think I am able to make people want to keep turning pages. They want to know what happens. So I can do that. "

" I do think that being a sort of celebrity and being well off does give me some responsibility. I think that people who make a lot of money - and I do - should certainly give a considerable amount of it away. "

" I don't do pride. It seems to me to be a very unpleasant thing. "

" I was imbued from a very early age with a sense of doom. "

" Wexford started off as a very conventional, tough cop and not a very original character because I had no idea I was writing a series, of course. I had no idea I'd created a series character. "

" I very much like writing about homosexual relations. I don't quite know why. Perhaps it's because I feel there's still so much to be said about them. "

" People tell me the most extraordinary things. I've noticed it for years. Perhaps they know I won't be shocked. Or judgmental. "

" I was a child, and in 1942, I was evacuated to the Cotswolds with my mother, who was a teacher - she went with her school. I lived in one house in the village, and my mother was in the vicarage. "