When I was younger, I avoided exercise or anything strenuous. I didn't even enjoy walking. As I got older, I spent so much time marking books or sitting at a desk writing that there was no room for exercise - not that I would have bothered anyway.

We have to make our own happiness, and we have to make our own decisions and play the hand that is dealt to us.

My mother was a trained nurse, and she'd tell me that patients would fight as they were administered anaesthetic, grappling to get the gas mask off their face.

I suppose, to be fair, I don't miss the energy of youth very much - because I was never fit. So it doesn't matter not being able to walk miles, striding the countryside, taking deep breaths and enjoying the scenery. That was never on my agenda.

When I was being brought up, we weren't allowed to wallow in self-pity, which was a thoroughly good thing. We were all fine and healthy because that was what we were told to be.

Success is not like a cake that needs to be divided. It's more like a heap of stones - a cairn. If someone is successful, they add a stone to the cairn. It gets very high and can be seen from all over the world. That's how I see it.

I've been very lucky and I have a happy old age with good family and friends still around.

I was lucky enough to be fairly quick at understanding what was taught, but unlucky enough not to be really interested in it, so I always got my exams but never had the scholar's love of learning for its own sake.

We are all the heroes and heroines of our own lives. Our love stories are amazingly romantic; our losses and betrayals and disappointments are gigantic in our own minds.

I have been lucky enough to travel a lot, meet great people in many lands. I have liked almost everyone I met along the way.

I had a very happy childhood, which is unsuitable if you're going to be an Irish writer.

I was very pleased, obviously, to have outsold such great writers. But I'm not insane - I do realize that I am a popular writer who people buy to take on vacation.

The biggest influence on my books was the fact that I had worked in a newspaper for so long. In a daily paper, you learn to write very quickly; there is no time to sit and brood about what you are going to say.

My memory of my home was that it was very happy, and that there was more fun and life there than there was anywhere else.

I have been blessed with friends who do things rather than buy things: friends who will change books at the library, take a bag of your old clothes to a thrift store, bring you cuttings and plant them in a window box, fill the bird feeder in your garden when you can't get out.

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.