I wore miniskirts in the days when no fat girls should have, and with total delight.

I couldn't have children, so that's the bad side. But compared to everything else I have, it's not all that terribly bad. I count my winners rather than my losers.

I do realize that I am a popular writer who people buy to take on vacation. I'm an escapist kind of writer.

That's the kind of motif I bring to the books - that people take charge of their own lives.

I don't have ugly ducklings turning into swans in my stories. I have ugly ducklings turn into confident ducks.

All I ever wanted to do is to write stories that people will enjoy and feel at home with.

I never wanted to write. I just wrote letters home from a kibbutz in Israel to reassure my parents that I was still alive and well fed and having a great time. They thought these letters were brilliant and sent them to a newspaper. So I became a writer by accident.

An English journalist called Michael Viney told me when I was 25, that I would write well if I cared a lot what I was writing about. That worked. I went home that day and wrote about parents not understanding their children as well as we teachers did, and it was published the very next week.

Because I saw my parents relaxing in armchairs and reading and liking it, I thought it was a peaceful grown-up thing to do, and I still think that.

If you woke up each morning, and immediately dwelt on your ills, what sort of a day could you look forward to?

We're nothing if we're not loved. When you meet somebody who is more important to you than yourself, that has to be the most important thing.

I'm pleased to have outsold great writers. But I'm not insane - I realize I am a writer people buy to take on vacation.

I was fat, and that was awful because when you're young and sensitive, you think the world is over because you're fat.

I think you've got to play the hand that you're dealt and stop wishing for another hand.

If you're going on a plane journey, you're more likely to take one of my stories than 'Finnegan's Wake.'

I'm mainly an airport author, and if you're trying to take your mind off the journey, you're not going to read 'King Lear.'

When I was teaching Latin in girls' schools before I became a writer, I didn't much like it if parents would come in and say, 'We'll have less of the Ovid and Virgil and more of the grammar, please.' After all, I was the one in charge. That's how I feel about doctors. You should trust them to do their job properly.

Growing up in Ireland, there never seemed to be the notion that children should be seen and not heard. We all looked forward to mealtimes when we'd sit around the table and talk about our days. Storytelling and long, rambling conversations were considered good things.

On the first day of school, my father told me I'd be the most popular girl and everyone would love me and want to be my friend. It wasn't so, but it gave me an enormous amount of confidence.

I was just lucky I lived in this time of mass-market paperbacks.

I didn't have a sweet tooth, but I liked butter, and I liked sauces, and I liked wine... and curry... and cheeses.

In my books, there is no 'ugly duckling turning into a beautiful swan' syndrome because if you look at the Hansel and Gretel syndrome, it was a mistake. It wasn't a duckling, it was a cygnet, and that's why it turned into a swan. The duckling should with any luck turn into a nice clucking duck and get on with its life. Cluck! Cluck! Cluck!

Nobody ever wins by the cavalry coming to rescue you. It isn't a question of you're happy if you get married, or you get thin, or you get rich, because I've known lots of thin, rich, married people who are absolutely miserable.

In my stories, whenever there's somebody wonderful and charming and bright and intelligent, that's me!

My brother married young, and his is the best marriage I know.

I am a big, confident, happy woman who had a loving childhood, a pleasant career, and a wonderful marriage. I feel very lucky.

I live in Ireland near the sea, only one mile from where I grew up - that's good, since I've known many of my neighbours for between 50-60 years. Gordon and I play chess every day, and we are both equally bad. We play chatty, over-talkative bad bridge with friends every week.

I'm a great will maker. I've made my will every year since I was 21.

I have been luckier than anyone I know or even heard of. I had a very happy childhood, a good education, I enjoyed working as a teacher, journalist and author. I have loved a wonderful man for over 33 years, and I believe he loves me, too.

I have great family and good friends; the stories I told became popular, and people all over the world bought them.

I am not a member of Fat Liberation, nor do I think that obesity is healthy. But I do believe that in many ways my life has been a more charmed and happy one because I was always large.

I grew up thinking it was wonderful to be big and strong and to be able to knock down other children in the playground if I needed to. But I never felt the need.

I discovered that men were just like everyone else, really. They liked you if you were good-tempered and easy to talk to. And being a big girl meant other females trusted you more and confided in you.

I realized that you didn't have to make self-deprecating remarks or turn yourself into the butt of some unspoken joke. I also discovered that being big didn't deter possible suitors.

If you don't go to a dance, you can never be rejected, but you'll never get to dance, either.

I don't say I was 'proceeding down a thoroughfare;' I say I 'walked down the road'. I don't say I 'passed a hallowed institute of learning;' I say I 'passed a school'.

You don't wear all your jewellery at once. You're much more believable if you talk in your own voice.

I was the big, bossy older sister, full of enthusiasms, mad fantasies, desperate urges to be famous, and anxious to be a saint - a settled sort of saint, not one who might have to suffer or die for her faith.

I am much more understanding of people than I used to be when I was young - people were either villainous or wonderful. They were painted in very bright colours. The bad side of it - and there is a corollary to everything - is that when we get older, we fuss more. I used to despise people who fussed.

I think I was dealt a good hand. I have happy genes.

You say to yourself: 'What could people, in all these countries, find in my books?' and yet I think we're all the same, anywhere. Everybody is a hero or a dramatic person in their own story if you just know where to look.

As a memorial, I'd like a statue. Not of me, but a little modern statue, in marble or bronze, maybe of a bird, in a park where children could play and people going by could see it. On it, I'd just like it to say: 'Maeve Binchy, storyteller' and people could look at the name and remember that they'd seen it somewhere else.

I believed that old people never laughed. I thought they sighed a lot and groaned. They walked with sticks, and they didn't like children on bicycles or roller skates... or with big dogs.

I'm getting better, happier, and nicer as I grow older, so I would be terrific in a couple of hundred years time.

I have an irregular heartbeat, so that means a fair amount of medication - and I have blood pressure pills, too, but no vitamins or supplements.

If I had my life to live all over again, I really think I would have been a fit person. Looking around me, I realise that the men and women who walked and ran and swam and played sport look better and feel better than the rest of us.