At home, growing up, we weren't really poor. We had everything we needed, we just didn't have what we wanted.

It seems very safe to me to be surrounded by green growing things and water.

I can count all the ways in which being a mother has enriched my understanding of the world, of character, my sense of the future and my attachment to it. I can't imagine what kind of writer I'd be if I didn't have my kids.

There's always a part of your nation's history that you haven't been told that... has a powerful impact on how you yourself may behave and may believe.

Sometimes I'm not even aware of some of the issues going on with me in my life until I sit down and start kind of looking for inspiration, trying to find something that inspires that creativity.

I always have this imagination, something I want to use. I don't understand the idea of leisure time.

Fright Night' I can just about deal with. Because the original is such a 1980s extravaganza. Which is a good thing. Obviously. But something like 'The Others' or anything psychological: I'm no good with that. I don't like it when there's space for me to use my imagination.

Most painting in the European tradition was painting the mask. Modern art rejected all that. Our subject matter was the person behind the mask.