"I have very fond memories of swimming in Walden Pond when we lived in Boston. You'd swim past a log and see all these turtles sunning themselves. Slightly disturbing if you thought about how many more were swimming around your toes, but also rather wonderful."

"At 20, 25, 30, we begin to realise that the possibilities of escape are getting fewer. We have jobs, children, partners, debts. This is the part of us to which literary fiction speaks."

"For me, disability is a way of getting some extremity, some kind of very difficult situation, that throws an interesting light on people."

"Every life is narrow. Our only escape is not to run away, but to learn to love the people we are and the world in which we find ourselves."

"Recovery is something that you have to work on every single day and it's something that it doesn't get a day off."

"I'm so wrapped up in my work that it's often impossible to consider other things in my life. My marriage ended in divorce because of this, my relationship with Holly has suffered by this."

"My job as the mother of daughters is to make sure my children see that every opportunity is available to them."

"Writing is hard work, but a lot of fun, too. It allows me to live out some of my fantasies."