I started to think about the assumptions we make that everyone we meet operates under the same moral code, and how betrayed we feel when that isn't the case.

I adore children, but I was never that interested in new born babies. It's a terrible thing to have to admit, and you're not supposed to think that way as a woman, but everyone promises it's different when you have your own. It wasn't for me, though.

When I first started writing, I was living in England and I had that uniquely English sense of sarcasm, which has definitely seemed to have left me. I am a naturalized American and my sensibility has become far more American.

Melanoma is not the most common of skin cancers, but it is the most dangerous if not found in the early stages.

I had always presumed that my first book would be published, but I never dreamt that I would write 15 bestsellers and have this wonderful life in America that I have entirely built for myself.

I treated the first few books as a very long journalistic exercise. I thought of every chapter as an article that needed to be finished.

I have a business manager and a book-keeper who deals with our household bills. My husband and I sit down with her for a weekly report on how much money is going out, but I'm not terribly interested, and I don't have the patience for it.

I think perhaps we all cook to feed some kind of hunger in ourselves. I am nourished by being surrounded by family and friends, by creating something delicious for them, by nurturing them.

I left my job as a feature writer on a newspaper to write a book, then sent it off to a number of agents thinking they would all reject me. Within a week, most had come back to say they loved what they had read, which then led to a bidding war for my first two novels.

I am not a big skier, but I love apres-ski wear and imagine I would look great in an all-white, fur-trimmed ski suit.

Ten years ago, you wrote a book and you never expected to find out anything about the author. Now with social media, everyone wants that connection. I think our readers want to be invited into our lives and brought on the journey and be part of this whole process.

My e-books sales have overtaken everything else, so I think all the marketing has become very much driven by the author now because of social media.

I read so much about men who aren't what they seem, and particularly stories written by women who found out their husbands had a slew of secrets they knew nothing about.

Sadly, I don't think books ever sell based on your name alone - the minute we make an assumption like that is the minute it all goes horribly wrong!

I do know that I have always been one of life's observers, always standing slightly on the outside, watching.

I have long been fascinated by our inclination to assume others we meet have the same moral code, similar values, and yet we can never be sure.

By the time I sat down to write 'Family Pictures,' I hadn't written anything in almost two years, and writing, I have discovered, is a muscle: if it isn't exercised, it will atrophy.

I write in the mornings once the kids have gone to school, taking my laptop and a coffee to a little writer's room in town where I plant noise-cancelling headphones on my head and get to work.

Twice a year, I take myself off to a self-imposed 'writer's retreat', staying at a small inn or on a friend's farm, where I am all alone and do nothing other than write.

A friend of mine suddenly announced she had written a novel and got a publishing deal; I thought, 'Hang on... if she can do it, I can bloody well do it, too.' That novel went to a bidding war, and went on to be a huge best-seller.

I wanted to write stories I wanted to read, that I and my friends related to.

I have a gorgeous office at home but tend not to write there because there are so many distractions.

I know plenty of people with kids in elite, private schools and had heard many stories. I have drifted into the homes of some of those very wealthy families in New York and am fascinated with the dynamic and how much freedom the children are given.

When you're working from home and you've got children, a big night out is going to Pizza Express down the road.

I always thought I'd be the quintessential Earth Mother, but when I had Harrison, I really wasn't the natural mother that I always thought I would be. I adore children, but I was never that interested in newborn babies.

I have spent many a night in an Internet chat room, but not since I've been married. I don't do the chat rooms anymore, but I have become completely addicted to Ebay.

My husband has a cousin who discovered, in his fifties, that the man he thought was his father was actually not, and that he had not only a father he had never met, but brothers.

What I want in a good beach read is sunshine, drama, easy-reading and transportation to another world and other people's problems.

I am very busy, life is very busy, and I was, I think, a somewhat lazy friend. I love them, I know they love me, but I didn't make much of an effort.

I consider myself pretty fearless, but the one thing I have always been frightened of is cancer.

As a child, growing up in Hampstead, North London, I was shockingly fair-skinned. Holidays involved me spending the second and third day face-down on a bed, shrieking should anyone touch my blistered skin.

My teens and 20s were spent lying on sheets of tinfoil in the weak English sun, covered in baby oil. In Greece and France I would burn, then turn a dark brown.

I had just got married when I started writing my fourth novel. I'd come back from honeymoon, moved into our first house - a gorgeous little carriage house in London - and made my office on the third floor, overlooking the treetops in North West London.

In 'Straight Talking,' I had bared my soul, and the press attention had been overwhelming. There were times when I felt scared and vulnerable, regretting the articles I had written to publicize the book, regretting I had opened my life up for all to see.

I was twenty-seven when I came up with the idea for my first novel.

I no longer think you can live without passion.

I am not someone who's very good at looking after herself, and I am also not someone who goes on holiday very often.

My favorite part of speaking at events has never been the speaking, but the reading of my books.

I would love to do the therapist on 'Two and a Half Men' again or just work with Charlie Sheen.

Will Ferrell in 'Talladega Nights.' He's a very generous performer. He's kind of just one of the guys, but his name happens to be above the title.

You know 'Ninotchka?' I recommend it. It's kind of a mess, too. It was before, you know, we got slick editing tools, so it kind of chops along.

My brother was listening to his transistor radio. He kept switching the earpiece from one ear to the other, which I thought was his idea of a joke. 'You can't do that,' I said. 'You can only hear out of one ear.' 'No, I can hear out of both,' he answered. And that was how I discovered I was deaf in my right ear.

I always ended up having the funny part in Shakespeare, but I really thought I'd be doing theater. That was my ambition for myself.

I wanted to do something where I could hang my hat.

I do feel that softness for the vulnerability and the innocence in our world, including my own.

I go to coffee shops for my outlet. Which is just not healthy at all.

I'm a character actress, and my particular brand is more mature, so I had to wait until my age caught up with the tricks in my little arsenal.

No one's just going to hand you a career. I waited for years for someone to hand me one and it never happened.

'Zoolander.' Yeah, I mean, I love Ben Stiller; he's just a brilliant guy. And I love Will Ferrell in it, too. His character, to me, is just insane, and he made such huge choices, and he's such a weirdo!

I love Matt LeBlanc in 'Episodes' - he's very good. And the 'Modern Family' cast just cracks me up.