I'm mainly an airport author, and if you're trying to take your mind off the journey, you're not going to read 'King Lear.'

Women who start out as ugly ducklings don't become beautiful swans. What they mainly become is confident ducks. They take charge of their lives.

I had a very happy childhood, which is unsuitable if you're going to be an Irish writer.

I have been blessed with friends who do things rather than buy things: friends who will change books at the library, take a bag of your old clothes to a thrift store, bring you cuttings and plant them in a window box, fill the bird feeder in your garden when you can't get out.

Never mind money; the gifts of time and skill call into being the richest marketplace in the world.

The biggest influence on my books was the fact that I had worked in a newspaper for so long. In a daily paper, you learn to write very quickly; there is no time to sit and brood about what you are going to say.