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" When all my kids were at home, I used to write from midnight onwards. "

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" I've always been fascinated by totalitarian regimes. I'm not an admirer of them. "

" I think we take it for granted that if you are with your husband after 30 years, then he is the love of your life. "

" I am surrounded by counselors. My sister is a counselor. My daughter is training to be a counselor. A lot of my friends are counselors. "

" In the playground, I always made people laugh; I used to charge them three pence for an impression of a teacher. It kept me in toffees. "

" I always feel as if I'm a disappointment: that people want a grand dame in furs like Barbara Taylor Bradford. "

" I must have been a very strange child. I was very pretentious. Like Adrian Mole. "

" People down on their luck deserve the best: beautiful surroundings and well-paid professional staff to help them out of their difficulties. Why not train thousands more social workers and let them sit in on claimants' interviews? "

" Every time I start a new piece of work, I spend a long while under the duvet thinking I can't do it. "

" Most social problems could be helped or prevented if people had more money and practical advice. "

" The monarchy is finished. It was finished a while ago, but they're still making the corpses dance. "

" I prefer to keep my secrets to myself, to the grave... and beyond! "

" I became an insomniac, really, hardly slept at all, didn't even try to. And it's carried on. I hate to say I only need as much sleep as Mrs. Thatcher, but I can cope really well on five hours. "

" Yes - I am usually overweight. I have had to be interested in diet because of being diabetic for 30 years and having kidney failure. "

" I hate it when people call me a 'national treasure.' It takes away your bite and makes you feel like a harmless old golden Labrador. "

" I don't like to be noticed. The older I've got, the more reclusive I've become. I've got late-onset shyness. People are lovely. When they see me in the street, they don't ask for anything from me. They just say: 'I thought it was you, and I just wanted to say how much I enjoy your books,' but I can't seem to cope with it anymore. "

" I am the world's worst diabetic. "

" I always have this image of a woman running across a desert carrying children, trying to find water and food, not knowing when they'll get that. And her feet are slashed up from the dry, hard earth... Even when I'm uncomfortable, sometimes in pain, or just cold... I think, 'Thank God for what I've got.' "

" When I was a child, I dreaded blindness. We used to ask: 'Would we rather be blind or deaf?' I said I'd rather be blind, even though I was scared of it. I couldn't bear not being able to hear music or talk to people. "

" I'm spectacularly disorganised. I wrote my latest book in seven different notebooks scattered throughout my house. "

" I'd love a day devoid of responsibilities. I've often thought about going to a hotel just to have a day away from everything. "

" I take life very seriously. I can laugh at it, because what else can you do? But it's a hard daily battle. "

" I always write back to people who are kind enough to write to me. Actually, I don't write - I recline on my red velvet sofa with my feet on the coffee table and dictate the letters to my eldest son. "

" Sometimes I rant, in a comical way, about how the gods give with one hand and take with the other. "

" I never imagined when I began writing in the early 1960s I'd become professional and my life would be transformed. "

" In the early days, it was, you know, I used to weep while I was writing. I used to grab at any kind of anything, any hint, any tip of how to make it easy. "

" Being poor with three small children is terrifying. You can't make any plans. You know you're not going on holiday, ever. There's no way you could ever afford driving lessons or a car. And the guilt I used to feel: they had holes in their shoes, and at one point, I had to send them to school wearing Wellingtons when the sun was shining. "

" I am a very independent person, and I, you know, I maintain that independence, but, you know, certain things - I mean, it takes, you know, it's just much easier for other people if other people can help you every now and again. "

" I have a slight addiction to Diet Coke, and, of course, I absolutely shouldn't touch it because it makes the kidneys work really hard. "

" I usually listen to the same thing over and over again: Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto in D Major. And Leonard Cohen. "

" My second husband encouraged me to go to a writing group at our local theatre. It was my 'coming out of the closet' moment. "