Of course, I should have done what doctors said and walked for miles every day and not eaten great amounts of butter. But then, life is life, and if we all did what they said we should do, it would be a different world.
The whole art of life is knowing the right time to say things.
I look placid, you see, that’s why people think I’m fine. Inside I worry a lot.
Always write as if you are talking to someone. It works. Don’t put on any fancy phrases or accents or things you wouldn’t say in real life.
I’ve had a good life, full of more success and happiness than I ever expected.
Of course I wanted children. Bright, gorgeous, loving children. I could almost see them.
I once got a huge, expensive flower arrangement from a person I didn’t like, who sent it out of pure guilt. It had a hideous bird-of-paradise in the middle, and I thought it would never fade and die. I hated it.
My memory of my home was that it was very happy, and that there was more fun and life there than there was anywhere else.
Success is not like a cake that needs to be divided. It’s more like a heap of stones – a cairn. If someone is successful, they add a stone to the cairn. It gets very high and can be seen from all over the world. That’s how I see it.
My brother married young, and his is the best marriage I know.
I was the big, bossy older sister, full of enthusiasms, mad fantasies, desperate urges to be famous, and anxious to be a saint – a settled sort of saint, not one who might have to suffer or die for her faith.
The biggest influence on my books was the fact that I had worked in a newspaper for so long. In a daily paper, you learn to write very quickly; there is no time to sit and brood about what you are going to say.
On the first day of school, my father told me I’d be the most popular girl and everyone would love me and want to be my friend. It wasn’t so, but it gave me an enormous amount of confidence.
If I had my life to live all over again, I really think I would have been a fit person. Looking around me, I realise that the men and women who walked and ran and swam and played sport look better and feel better than the rest of us.
My father went to work by train every day. It was half an hour’s journey each way, and he would read a paperback in four journeys. After supper, we all sat down to read – it was long before TV, remember!
My mother was a trained nurse, and she’d tell me that patients would fight as they were administered anaesthetic, grappling to get the gas mask off their face.
When my sister Joan arrived, I asked if I could swap her for a rabbit. When I think what a marvellous friend she’s been, I’m so glad my parents didn’t take me at my word.
In Ireland every place you visit and every person you meet has a story. And they love to tell you their stories. Everyone is interested in everything; in a land of storytellers, you will never be bored.
I couldn’t have children, so that’s the bad side. But compared to everything else I have, it’s not all that terribly bad. I count my winners rather than my losers.
I remember watching myself on video and being so disappointed with myself because I was constantly moving around the place and laughing. I thought, ‘I must be so much louder than I think I am. From inside it feels fine.’