"Suddenly they asked me, as only the French would, ‘Madame, what is your philosophy of life?’ What a cosmic question, but I had to answer, and answer quickly, because it was live. So I said, in French, ‘I think that you’ve got to play the hand that you’re dealt and stop wishing for another hand.’"

“It's like if you don't go to a dance you can never be rejected but you'll never get to dance either.”

“I once tried to write a novel about revenge. It's the only book I didn't finish. I couldn't get into the mind of the person who was plotting vengeance.”

“I don't say I was 'proceeding down a thoroughfare', I say I 'walked down the road'. I don't say I 'passed a hallowed institute of learning', I say I 'passed a school'. You don't wear all your jewellery at once. You're much more believable if you talk in your own voice.”

“I often wonder that if I had met Hitler, I reckon I might have found some streak of decency in him.”

“I write exactly as I speak, so therefore I would not say any writer influenced me at all.”

“On my 100th birthday, piloting Gordon and myself into the side of a mountain.”