My father was an autodidact. It wasn’t a middle-class house. Shopkeepers are aspirant. He paid for me to go to private school. He was denied an education – he had a horrible childhood. He got a place at a grammar school and wasn’t allowed to go.
Fairy tales opened up a door into my imagination – they don’t conform to the reality that’s around you as a child. I started reading when I was three and read everything, but I wanted to be an actress.
The great thing about writing compared to life is getting to tie things up.
Probably not needing to be published would give me more time to think about a book.
You can step in the same river but the water will always be new.
Feminism is such an incredibly awkward word for us these days, isnt it? Not to be feminist would be bizarre, wouldnt it?
Sometimes it was harder to change the past than it was the future.
What if we had a chance to do it again and again, until we finally did get it right? Wouldn’t that be wonderful?
Jennifer had never liked the pain of remembering what had happened, but for Theo it was the pain that kept Laura alive in his memory. He was afraid that if it ever began to heal she would disappear.
Time was a thief, he stole your life away from you and the only way you could get it back was to outwit him and snatch it right back.
Love was the hardest thing. Don’t let anyone ever tell you different.
What did you do when the worst thing that could happen to you had already happened – how did you live life then? You had to hand it to Theo Wyre, just carrying on living required a strength and courage that most people didn’t have.
He was born a politician. No, Ursula thought, he was born a baby, like everyone else. And this is what he has chosen to become.
The past is what you take with you.
Hindsight’s a wonderful thing. If we all had it there would be no history to write about.
Life wasn’t about becoming, was it? It was about being.
Most people muddled through events and only in retrospect realized their significance.
You must never believe everything they say about a person. Generally speaking, most of it will be lies, half-truths at best.
Become such as you are, having learned what that is.
No point in thinking, you just have to get on with life. We only have one after all, we should try and do our best. We can never get it right, but we must try.
It was a long time ago now. And it was yesterday.