I hate the idea of sequels. I think you should be able to do it in one book.

Only a great genius like the Victorian novelist Elizabeth Gaskell can be mother, wife and novelist without solitude. I couldn't write until my youngest child went to school, and then I began - the first morning - and I've never stopped.

If I've got one thing that I really believe about fiction and life, it's that there are no minor characters.

English country life is more like Chekhov than 'The Archers' or Thomas Hardy or even the Updike ethic with which it is sometimes compared.

I believe that facts serve feminists far better than faith. That due process is better than mob rule.

Then, certainly, to be a Christian is to love God above all, and our neighbour as ourselves.

I think every person should have some faith inside him, in his heart. What matters is not an external display of this faith, but the inner state of the soul.

You simply cannot do a sitcom by committee. It will not work. You've got to have one or two clean, creative voices in charge, and there's got to be some faith by the studio and network in those people to make the right choices.