"writer, a man I loved and he loved me and we got married and it was great and is still great. He believed I could do anything, just as my parents had believed all those years ago, and I started to write fiction and that took off fine. And he loved Ireland, and the fax was invented so we writers could live anywhere we liked, instead of living in London near publishers."

“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.”