I'd never have written the big books in London.

The male is a domestic animal which, if treated with firmness and kindness, can be trained to do most things.

For sheer sexiness, a man must be beautiful. Funny. yes. Clever, no.

I have a theory that the secret of marital happiness is simple: drink in different pubs to your other half.

My own parents loved each other very much.

It must be a terrible pressure to have to go to the office.

I live at home and, if I want to start work at 11 o'clock, I can.

I'm basically a very happy person and I don't have to be anybody else.

I love the long grass coming up to meet the willows.

There is nothing more attractive than a man who is not a New Man.

Never drink black coffee at lunch; it will keep you awake all afternoon.

I was so flattered that someone wanted me to write a book, I said I would. It was published in 1969.

I think it bespeaks a generous nature, a man who can cook.

You've simply got to go on and on with your family and friends and tell them how much you love them because you never know whether they'll be there tomorrow, do you?

And I would really like to be a grandmother, but only when Felix or Emily meet the right person and are ready.

I wrote my earliest piece for The Sunday Times about being a young wife.

The bank told us we ought to sell this house to pay off our overdraft. Riders saved the day. I was so pleased when it got to number one, I went all around the fields crying and crying.

I'd never have written the big books in London.

At home I have big vats of cabbage soup that I make to slim down.

If you look across the valley, you can see exactly what I mean: about four beautiful houses, and you think something is happening in each of them. It's like a mural.

But really I'm not terribly interested in what I eat.

I would really like to spend more time with the family. Every time I go abroad I miss them all dreadfully.

I've got a book coming out soon so I just must get some weight off.

But I always seem to finish a book and then think, oh God, I've got to pay a tax bill, so I'd better write a novel, so I tend not to stop and learn word processing.

Leo, sadly, has Parkinson's, but he used to cook all sorts of dazzling things.

People always assume that bachelors are single by choice and spinsters because nobody asked them. It never enters their heads that poor bachelors might have worn the knees of their trousers out proposing to girls who rejected them or that a girl might deliberately stay unmarried.

The only thing a whirlwind courtship does is blow dust in everyones eyes.

The male - I have found - is a domestic animal which, if treated with firmness and kindness, can be trained to do most things.

There were a lot of adventure books for boys, historical novels by Kenneth Roberts, and whatever mystery novels the alarmed librarian imagined might not corrupt an eager but innocent youth.

It is chiefly through books that we enjoy intercourse with superior minds. In the best books, great men talk to us, give us their most precious thoughts, and pour their souls into ours.

It is the interest one takes in books that makes a library. And if a library have interest it is; if not, it isn't.

I enjoy about 1 out of 100 movies, it's about the same proportion to books published that I care to read.

I was drawn to boxing because I got beat up as a kid. I was the kid with the piano books in a New York neighbourhood.

It's clear to me that there is no good reason for many philosophy books to sound as complicated as they do.

The proper study of mankind is books.

I have written about 10 books, all just practical encouragement for moms.

Whites were the winners, blacks were the losers, we wrote the history books, and they didn't feature.

Good books, like good friends, are few and chosen; the more select, the more enjoyable.

You could say, in a vulgar Freudian way, that I am the unhappy child who escapes into books. Even as a child, I was most happy being alone. This has not changed.

Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist.

As I have studied the Bible and the Book of Mormon, I have come to know through the power of the Spirit of God, that these books contain the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

There are some friends you don't meet for twenty years and when you meet them again it's as if no twenty years has happened - you're lucky when that happens. I feel the same about books.

Then I found books that were written much later, as late as 15 years ago. It was very superficial material, but enough to tell me that the genesis of this story was worth exploring.

To buy books would be a good thing if we also could buy the time to read them.

Well, it was actually - I brought the idea of doing a documentary to HBO back in 2000, when there were some press reports sort of were bandied about that there were going to TV movies based on some of the books that were out.

In my subconscious, my books were part of a single emotional journey.

I get letters from readers who say that they have always hated reading, but somebody suggested one of my books, they actually finished the book and enjoyed it, and they're going on to read another book. I'm thrilled that they have figured out that reading is fun.

I never buy magazines, I never even buy books.

Books are funny little portable pieces of thought.