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" 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. "

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" 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

" There is something very easy about women's friendships that you don't see as often with men. We all know examples of this, when women will just call each other up or drop a line, not with anything specific to say. "

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

" As well as writing novels and doing short-order journalism, I am also the full-time carer of my husband, who has Alzheimer's. Each day feels like a race that must be run. "

" I almost always use first person voice in my novels. It has its limitations, but it gives a sense of immediacy that's hard to create with an anonymous, all-seeing narrator. "

" 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

" 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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

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

Laurie Graham

Dementia

Common

" 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. "

" My early novels were very understated and English. Fourteen years ago, I met and married my American husband, and as I learned more about his background and culture, I became interested in using American voices. "

Laurie Graham

Husband

Early

" 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. "

" I've never minded solitude. For a writer, it's a natural condition. But caring for a dementia sufferer leads to a peculiar kind of loneliness. "

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

Laurie Graham

Relationships

Grief

" I have an idea for a story, and if the idea is going to work, then one of the characters steps forward, and I hear her voice telling the story. This is what has happened with all the books I've written in the first person. "

" I hate to think I ever make my husband frightened or unhappy, but I suspect I do. "

" 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

" It was the Victorians who covered the piano legs and drew a heavy curtain over what a lady got up to in her boudoir. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

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

" 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. "

" As one ages, eventually, no matter what regime you've followed, no matter how fiercely you've fought the fight, good health becomes harder to maintain. It may disappear overnight or simply dwindle, but with every year that passes, the odds shorten. "

" The terror dementia sufferers must feel is unimaginable, but the techniques they use to hide their difficulties - the ducking and diving and keeping the world laughing - are perfectly understandable. "

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

" My mother was a fastidious and orderly homemaker. I was the messy but creative type. I picture her following behind me through life with a damp rag and an air of exasperation. "

Laurie Graham

Life

Picture