In the Cut' was not what readers expected of me. Before it was published, I was seen as a women's writer, which meant that I wrote movingly about flowers and children.

It is possible to say that all of my books concern themselves with the notion of what it means to be female - whether it is in New York City in 2000 or Calcutta in 1836. In that way, my books really are the same.

Transgressive to me means breaking the rules and sinning. I don't see myself as breaking the rules and sinning. I'm really interested in what it means to be female.

The task of understanding the past is neverending.

When the film industry moves to the 21st century, there should be no doubt in anyone's mind that the money used in film-making is clean and devoid of any underworld connections.

I see myself as a bit of a capitalist really - I like enterprise and making money.

Research by James Poterba at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology finds that the wealth of the U.S.'s elderly is highly skewed. About half of retirees have little or no financial wealth when they retire and depend almost entirely on Social Security for their income.

There's book smart, there is street smart, there's relationship smart, there's too many different kinds of smarts to know all of them. Everybody doesn't know every kind of smart. There's money smart, there's movie smart, there's computer smart. There's just too many different kinds of smarts for people to know all the smarts.