"I have a hippopotamus skull next to my bed, called Gregory. When I was six, my three sisters and I clubbed together and paid £4 for it in a junk shop. We collected owl pellets, ostrich eggs and sheep skulls for our natural history museum at home."

"It's a very rich brew that's in your psyche by the time you're in your 60s, and I think that's rather interesting. It makes you feel you've lived a very long life; it's like going on holiday to three different cities rather than spending two weeks in Lisbon. You look back on the holiday, and you seem to have been away forever."

"Writing a novel is a huge adventure; when it's going well it's more fun than fun. When it stutters to a halt put it aside. Go for a swim, go for a walk, take a week off. Don't panic or be afraid; you and your characters are in it together. Trust them to come to your rescue."

"I was never a lonely child who sat looking at the rain sliding down the window."

"It was very liberating, living in a foreign country, a place where everything was new and strange - the food, the customs, the climate, everything."

"Nothing beats weaving through the rush-hour traffic or whizzing past the eternal gridlock that is the Strand."

"Once you start cycling, the city opens up for you. No longer are you fighting it, hot and frustrated; no longer are you at the mercy of bus drivers, roadworks, decisions made by others and over which you have no control. Believe me, once you've tasted this freedom, you're hooked."

"All I want is for people, when they read my books, to feel companioned, to feel they're not alone in the world."

"I've had a very lucky life because I'm of this generation where everything was possible."

"I've written something like 17 novels, which isn't bad, I suppose, but my father wrote 120 books, my mother 40. In comparison, I'm lazy."

"I feel as if someone is going to come along, feel my collar and say: 'Do you really think you can get people to read books you've made up about people that don't exist?'"

"Whining writers are a hideous sight; we should really shut up, because we are lucky if we can cobble together a living from all of this."

"Bringing my two children up while writing was just a part of life. I'd much rather have had their interruptions than been stuck in a sterile office. This way, I had welcome distractions. I had to load the washing machine, I had to go out and buy lemons."

"Don't start writing your novel until you know your characters very, very well. What they'd do if they saw somebody shoplifting. What they were like at school. What shoes they wear. Spend days - weeks, months - being them until they thicken up and start to breathe."

"Psych yourself up until you're confident that the world will be interested in what happens to your characters. Confidence is key."

"Discover the times when you're most creative - mornings, nights, afternoons - and clear the time to work then. Many writers find the mornings are best, and the afternoons are only good for editorial corrections, or getting the washing done. Others can only work through the night, drunk."

"I'm always running my mouth off and getting myself in trouble, so I'm trying to do it less."

"It's not a failure if a marriage or partnership ends after a certain number of years. I think, in general, we expect too much of partners. We can't fulfil a person's every single need and, after ten years or so, many relationships wear out. If we were more philosophical about it, we wouldn't try to blame the other person or be bitter."

"Men take much more notice of older women in France, so I might move there. I think I'm a good bet."

"I'm quite easy to live with and very easy going."

"I am a great believer in having the power to end your life and knowing that, in extremis, you can. But I would not want to involve anybody else in my actions if it could imperil them."

"If people want to take their lives and are helped to do so, the punishment is tragic for all concerned."

"One sees more and more people who are miserable and demented and you feel it would be both kind and wise to leave them a few pills."

"My perfect day is to work incredibly well in the morning and write something wonderful, then take the dog for a walk and go for a swim in the ladies' ponds on Hampstead Heath or work in my allotment. Then I get tarted up in the evening and go out in London to dinner or the cinema."

"I'm mad about gardening. I have an allotment on the other side of Hampstead Heath, and I keep three hens in my garden."

"Everything will be all right in the end... if it's not all right then it's not yet the end."

"Sophia will not come. How mad he is to imagine, for a moment, that she might. Why should she risk everything for him? He can offer her nothing, only love."

"I look in the mirror expecting to be 34 and see someone who is 58. What's that all about? I haven't even thought about turning 60 yet, but so many of my friends have celebrated it by now that it's lost its terror. And I don't mind being 58; it's just such a surprise when one doesn't feel it at all."

"I wanted to be a landscape architect, but I trained as a teacher; I worked in publishing; I was a waitress."

"It is a nice sunny day; his bunions have stopped hurting. There is always something to celebrate, in Gerrit’s view."

"Who everywhere is free from all ties, who neither rejoices nor sorrows if fortune is good or ill, his is a serene wisdom. Intro to Part 3, Chapter 1. Credit was given to The Bhagavad Gita."

"My favourite room in my house is easily the top room, which is a bedroom but also a bathroom, with a big, wooden carved bath, two huge fireplaces and a raised bit in the corner for performances. I've had some really lovely parties and poetry readings up there."

"Every time you are tempted to react in the same old way, ask if you want to be a prisoner of the past or a pioneer of the future."

"You must find the place inside yourself where nothing is impossible."

"When you struggle with your partner, you are struggling with yourself. Every fault you see in them touches a denied weakness in yourself."

"Holding on to anything is like holding on to your breath. You will suffocate. The only way to get anything in the physical universe is by letting go of it. Let go & it will be yours forever."

"In the midst of movement and chaos, keep stillness inside of you."

"When you make a choice, you change the future."

"Walk with those seeking truth... RUN FROM THOSE WHO THINK THEY'VE FOUND IT."

"Even when you think you have your life all mapped out, things happen that shape your destiny in ways you might never have imagined."

"Sex is always about emotions. Good sex is about free emotions; bad sex is about blocked emotions."

"If you try to get rid of fear and anger without knowing their meaning, they will grow stronger and return."

"You will be transformed by what you read."

"Happiness for a reason is just another form of misery because the reason can be taken away from us at any time."

"If you’re really spiritual, then you should be totally independent of the good and the bad opinions of the world…you should have faith in yourself."

"The most creative act you will ever undertake is the act of creating yourself."

"If you focus on success, you’ll have stress. But if you pursue excellence, success will be guaranteed."

"Mathematics expresses values that reflect the cosmos, including orderliness, balance, harmony, logic, and abstract beauty."

"Nothing brings down walls as surely as acceptance."

"To acquire true self power you have to feel beneath no one, be immune to criticism and be fearless."