So long as you tell a story that falls within the fairly generous boundaries of the suspense novel, you're free to make the novel as good as you can. You're allowed to challenge the reader. You can experiment with voice and style.

As a young, ambitious novelist, writing for kids never crossed my mind.

As a kid, books were my great escape and my salvation.

I vividly remember my sixth-grade classroom. I remember what it smelled like, where I sat, what I could see out the window, and how I felt about things. Peel away my decrepit middle-aged exterior, and an important part of me is still twelve years old. It helps me when I sit down to write stories for kids.

Every relationship should eventually become a long-term relationship. Any director that I meet now isn't just a director. He's potentially a friend, and someone I can call to do a project that I want or that I have.

Never make friends with people who are above or below you in status. Such friendships will never give you any happiness.

The Crimson Petal and the White' is a book, and it will win or lose the trust of each reader when they begin reading its pages. That relationship will go on.

I find it weird the way people get so excited about celebrity. If my friends are on the phone, their friends will say: 'Is that kid from 'Love Actually' there?' And the phone gets passed round and I have to speak to this stranger asking: 'Are you famous?' I don't know how to answer.