"I try to be careful because technology changes so much over the years. But some things don't change. Kids and parents have disagreements, kids try to manipulate, parents try to sit down with rules and regs. That part never changes."

"None of my characters seem to have had sex yet - I haven't written about that. And I wouldn't want to deal with what's happening in Oregon - the school shootings."

"I made the choice long ago to write about real life. And life is both serious and funny."

"I deal with unhappy marriages a lot. I've never been married, I'm single."

"I rebelled by not getting straight A's and not following the path that my elder sister did. She was valedictorian and is very exemplary in her way. I look a lot like her, so I just had to do the opposite. Not that I got bad grades, but I was all about performance and just finding any way that I could to be involved in any kind of production."

"A wise woman knows how to summon her courage and do what is right, rather than what is easy."

"They can do without architecture who have no olives nor wines in the cellar."

"The mandate I have received and for which I will speak with heart and head to implement over the next seven years had its four pillars - an inclusive citizenship, equality and participation and respect in a creative society creating an excellence in everything we Irish do."