I always write back to people who are kind enough to write to me. Actually, I don't write - I recline on my red velvet sofa with my feet on the coffee table and dictate the letters to my eldest son.

I always wanted to be Jo in 'Little Women.' She's a bit reckless and feckless, always getting into trouble like me. But I'm probably more like Madame Bovary.

When all my kids were at home, I used to write from midnight onwards.

I'm spectacularly disorganised. I wrote my latest book in seven different notebooks scattered throughout my house.

I knew who Jackie Kennedy was in terms of being the wife of JFK and being a clothes horse, and I knew that she later married Onassis, but I had a very, very vague idea of who he was.

Dance India Dance' is family to me. I actually miss the madness whenever the season is not on air.

Before marriage, a man declares that he would lay down his life to serve you; after marriage, he won't even lay down his newspaper to talk to you.

As children, many of us were taught never to talk to strangers. As parents and grandparents, our message must change with technology to include strangers on the Internet.