Jane Austen easily used half a page describing someone else's eyes; she would not appreciate summarizing her reading tastes in ten titles.
He saw things in a way that others did not so that a city I had lived in all my life seemed a different place so that a woman became beautiful with the light on her face.
So many (too many) books are published every year and it seems everyone is writing a book. Perhaps we should all be reading more and writing less!
Normally book ideas come to me in a moment.
It's a rare book that wins the battle against drooping eyelids.
I had walked along that street all my life but had never been so aware that my back was to my home
We say very little for we do not need to. We are silent together each in her own world knowing the other is just at her back.
As I get older I use less jewelry - necklace or earrings each morning not both; my clothes are getting more basic - fewer colours and simpler cuts; and my make-up is stripped back to basics.
I find that when I come out of the library I'm in what I call the library bliss of being totally taken away from the distractions of life.
I have consistently loved books that I've read when I've been sick in bed.
You're so calm and quiet you never say. But there are things inside you. I see them sometimes hiding in your eyes.
I didn't move. I've learned from years of experience that dogs and falcons and ladies come back to you if you stay where you are.
I try to write 1 000 words a day - about three pages. When I reach 1 000 words I feel good. Less than that: a failure. More than that: tired.
It's those little daily incidents of life that are dramatic and if you put a frame around it suddenly they become much bigger and much more important than you ever imagined.
It was not a house where secrets could be kept easily.
Yes well life is a folly. If you live long enough nothing is surprising.
Over his shoulder I saw a star fall. It was me.
You know I don't listen to market gossip " she began "but it is hard not to hear it when my daughter's name is mentioned.
Although I always said that I wanted to be a writer from childhood I hadn't actually done much about it until I came to London.
I wanted to wear the mantle and the pearls. I wanted to know the man who painted her like that.
The sign of a masterpiece: A painting when there's a lack of resolution.
As a reader I happen to like turning pages and wanting to know what happens next.
Say something worth the words.
Don't write about what you know - write about what you're interested in. Don't write about yourself - you aren't as interesting as you think.