I'm always surprised at what I actually end up doing because I don't have a strategy or a game plan, especially now that I'm making my own choices.

It's such a male-dominated industry. You can be a feminist, it's just difficult because it sometimes comes back at you.

It's interesting for me to always make myself look very different.

My mother, she had a very good attitude toward money. I'm very grateful for the fact that we had to learn to save. I used to get like 50 pence a week, and I'd save it for like five months. And then I'd spend it on Christmas presents. I'd save up like eight pounds. It's nothing, but we did that.

I think a lot of people assume you need to be born into a special creative family to have a career as a writer. So I never thought it would happen for me.

Nothing good gets written without the writer suffering along the way, in my opinion. Writing should be a pleasure, but unless you feel almost broken many, many times in the journey to a novel, you haven't pushed yourself hard enough.

People who think my books are autobiographical, which they're not, credit me with having a much better memory than I do. I do, however, have a powerful imagination.

I enjoy all mediums, and I have to say, music is the medium that first made me understand how powerful art could be.