Writers of novels live in a strange world where what's made up is as important as what's real.

It is through our extended family that we first learn to compromise and come to an understanding that even if we don't always agree about things we can still love and look out for each other.

I always thought that bagels and lox was my soul food, but it turns out it's sushi.

Something I notice speaking to writers from south of Hadrians Wall is that the culture is different. At base, I think Scotland values its creative industries differently from England.

I jealously guard my research time and I love fully immersing myself in those dusty old books and papers. It's one of the most enjoyable parts of my job.

The sky was a sparkling succession of black diamonds on black velvet made crystal clear by the blackout.

I believe the era of the militant lady is back.

Without archives many stories of real people would be lost, and along with those stories, vital clues that allow us to reflect and interpret our lives today.

Research material can turn up anywhere - in a dusty old letter in an archive, a journal or some old photographs you find in a charity shop.

Books have a vital place in our culture. They are the source of ideas, of stories that engage and stretch the imagination and most importantly, inspire.

While I'm frustrated at the amount I'm expected to take on in the present, the 1950s woman was frustrated by being excluded - not being allowed to take things on at all.

I've made an odd discovery. Every time I talk to a savant I feel quite sure that happiness is no longer a possibility. Yet when I talk with my gardener, I'm convinced of the opposite.

Family ownership provides the independence that is sometimes required to withstand governmental pressure and preserve freedom of the press.

I believe that unless it's a scene where I'm alone, then of course I could do what I want but I think good acting is about what happens between people, not on your face and my face.

Once you've done one style, you leave it for a while.

Don't think of us as separate beings. Imagine that we are one body and it's been split into millions. When we sit in the mediation hall - that is unity

We must constantly remind ourselves that we are eternity, infinite, beyond birth and death.

I want a new drug, one that won't make me sick. One that won't make me crash my car, or make my head three feet thick.

Oh the wild joys of living! The leaping from rock to rock ... the cool silver shock of the plunge in a pool's living waters.

Treat people well on your way up and they'll treat you well on your way down.

We have a limit, a very discouraging, humiliating limit: death.