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.

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.

My mother hoped I would meet a nice doctor or barrister or accountant who would marry me and take me to live in what is now called Fashionable Dublin Four. But she felt that this was a vain hope. I was a bit loud to make a nice professional wife, and anyway, I was too keen on spending my holidays in far flung places to meet any of these people.

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.

I'm actually totally the prude of my family.

My sister has three kids so I've spent a lot of time around children and I've always really liked them and wanted my own. It's cool because you think all babies are the same but they aren't at all. They all have such different personalities. It's crazy.

I don't think men are that attracted by glamour. I think women are attracted by glamour. I think men are attracted by a sense of friendship.

Growing up, mostly in Montreal, I was an only child of loving parents.