The best part of learning any profession, when you're really going through those huge stretching escalated times of learning and energy, is when you want to do it so much.

I had a place in England and was commuting from England to Australia, which is pretty stupid, but after two years I sort of knew what I wanted to do, more or less.

Very quickly, without really looking back or trying, I was just suddenly lifted into another sphere.

It was a very odd household, because the grandmothers were so different. Both of them had their own pianos. So it would be duelling pianos by grandmothers.

If you look at the British royal family and take away the scandals and the goofy stuff that's going on, people love to have this king to look up to - the royals are like celebrities.

My family has never understood why I play crazy, angry, depressed people because that is not the way they think of me. They see me as a totally messy, klutzy goofball - kind of weird and hyper.

I was one of those weirdos who, at six years old, was telling everybody that I wanted to be an actor. I saw my sister in a play and realized that I wanted to play make believe in front of people; I was always goofing around and putting on shows for my family.

Being a novelist and being a mother have exactly coincided in my life: the call from my agent saying that I had a contract for my first novel - that was on my answering phone message when I got back from the hospital with my first child.