“A friend of mine suddenly announced she had written a novel and got a publishing deal; I thought, 'Hang on... if she can do it, I can bloody well do it, too.' That novel went to a bidding war, and went on to be a huge best-seller.”

“As a teenager, you are still entirely wrapped up in yourself.”

“As far back as I can remember, I have worshipped the sun. My skin is fair, but as the years have gone by, it has toughened and darkened. I now turn a rich golden brown every summer, but only after the first day of burning.”

“By the time I sat down to write 'Family Pictures,' I hadn't written anything in almost two years, and writing, I have discovered, is a muscle: if it isn't exercised, it will atrophy.”

“Chick lit was amazing, and I was thrilled to be part of it.”

“For me, decorating perfection means eclectic styles and collections of beautiful things like pottery, pillboxes and match strikers.”

“Having struggled with food issues and eating disorders myself, particularly when I was younger, I've long been interested in using it within my books.”

“I adore children, but I was never that interested in new born babies. It's a terrible thing to have to admit, and you're not supposed to think that way as a woman, but everyone promises it's different when you have your own. It wasn't for me, though.”

“I always thought I'd be the quintessential Earth Mother, but when I had Harrison, I really wasn't the natural mother that I always thought I would be. I adore children, but I was never that interested in newborn babies.”

“I am divorced, and one of the things I am tremendously grateful for is that my ex-husband and I made a decision to go through mediation. I knew a trial would drag on for years, would cost me everything, but worse, would be devastating for our four small children.”

“I am not a big skier, but I love apres-ski wear and imagine I would look great in an all-white, fur-trimmed ski suit.”

“I am Superwoman. I am the author of 15 novels, including one about cancer. I am not, however, someone who 'gets' cancer. I am a sun worshipper who never thought it could happen to me.”

“I am very busy, life is very busy, and I was, I think, a somewhat lazy friend. I love them, I know they love me, but I didn't make much of an effort.”

“I believe it is the flaws that make us interesting, our backgrounds, the hardships.”

“I do know that I have always been one of life's observers, always standing slightly on the outside, watching.”

“I don't listen to anything when I'm writing. I need total quiet, which is astounding, given that I spent years working for a newspaper and having to write features surrounded by ringing phones and people shouting.”

“I had always presumed that my first book would be published, but I never dreamt that I would write 15 bestsellers and have this wonderful life in America that I have entirely built for myself.”

“I have a business manager and a book-keeper who deals with our household bills. My husband and I sit down with her for a weekly report on how much money is going out, but I'm not terribly interested, and I don't have the patience for it.”

“I have a deep and passionate love of America. It is where I have always thought I would be happiest, and although I miss England desperately, I find that my heart definitely has its home over here.”

“I have a gorgeous office at home but tend not to write there because there are so many distractions.”

“I have been incredibly lucky with my novels but I had absolutely no idea if anyone would be interested in a cookbook. So I started to think about self-publishing.”

“I have long been fascinated by our inclination to assume others we meet have the same moral code, similar values, and yet we can never be sure.”

“I have spent many a night in an Internet chat room, but not since I've been married.”

“I have spent many a night in an Internet chat room, but not since I've been married. I don't do the chat rooms anymore, but I have become completely addicted to Ebay.”

“I know plenty of people with kids in elite, private schools and had heard many stories. I have drifted into the homes of some of those very wealthy families in New York and am fascinated with the dynamic and how much freedom the children are given.”

“I left my job as a feature writer on a newspaper to write a book, then sent it off to a number of agents thinking they would all reject me. Within a week, most had come back to say they loved what they had read, which then led to a bidding war for my first two novels.”

“I love getting out the house because writing is such a solitary business that even being at the library makes me feel part of the world.”

“I read so much about men who aren't what they seem, and particularly stories written by women who found out their husbands had a slew of secrets they knew nothing about.”

“I show the people I love that I love them by gathering them in my kitchen and feeding them, so no surprise that most of my characters do the same thing.”

“I started to think about the assumptions we make that everyone we meet operates under the same moral code, and how betrayed we feel when that isn't the case.”

“I think friendship is more important than love, but that love that grows out of friendship is the very best of all.”

“I think perhaps we all cook to feed some kind of hunger in ourselves. I am nourished by being surrounded by family and friends, by creating something delicious for them, by nurturing them.”

“I treated the first few books as a very long journalistic exercise. I thought of every chapter as an article that needed to be finished.”

“I wanted to write stories I wanted to read, that I and my friends related to.”

“I write in the mornings once the kids have gone to school, taking my laptop and a coffee to a little writer's room in town where I plant noise-cancelling headphones on my head and get to work.”

“I'd like to think I'm not quite so pretentious as to think my characters go off and live their lives once I've written the final page and switched the computer off.”

“Just as there are moments when the words flow and it feels like the easiest job in the world, there are many more when I think I have nothing to say, and my journalism training taught me that writing is a job, that you write whether you are inspired or not, and that the only way to unlock creativity is to write through it.”

“Melanoma is not the most common of skin cancers, but it is the most dangerous if not found in the early stages.”

“My e-books sales have overtaken everything else, so I think all the marketing has become very much driven by the author now because of social media.”

“My training as a journalist was invaluable: when I worked on 'The Daily Express,' the editor would often ask for 1000 words within a couple of hours. I could not say I was not inspired. I had to get on with it.”

“Sadly, I don't think books ever sell based on your name alone - the minute we make an assumption like that is the minute it all goes horribly wrong!”

“Taking a risk is always frightening, but I gave myself a set period of time and had enough money to see me through. I operated from the belief that things would be okay, that if I wasn't successful I would find myself a job, but either way, I would be fine.”

“Ten years ago, you wrote a book and you never expected to find out anything about the author. Now with social media, everyone wants that connection. I think our readers want to be invited into our lives and brought on the journey and be part of this whole process.”

“The bad news is that my thin melanoma has something called mitosis, which means the cancer cells are dividing and multiplying even as I write. My thin melanoma has already spread outside of the tumor and into the deep layers of skin.”

“The life of a bestselling novelist sounds like it ought to be spectacularly glamorous and fun, but in fact I spend most of my time incognito, and in fact were you to pass me in the street you would think I was just another dowdy suburban mom.”

“The wonderful thing about being a writer is that everything that happens is grist to the mill.”

“Twice a year, I take myself off to a self-imposed 'writer's retreat', staying at a small inn or on a friend's farm, where I am all alone and do nothing other than write.”

“What I've come to learn with self-publishing is that if you want to provide readers with something of equal quality, it requires the same amount of time and expense.”

“When I first started writing, I was living in England and I had that uniquely English sense of sarcasm, which has definitely seemed to have left me. I am a naturalized American and my sensibility has become far more American.”

“When I was a student, I had a part time job as a barmaid at a dodgy pub in Kent.”

“When you're working from home and you've got children, a big night out is going to Pizza Express down the road.”

“Writing is a muscle that needs to be exercised every day: The more you write, the easier it becomes.”