All TV can do is capture the spirit of a book because the medium is so utterly different. But I'm very grateful for the readers that Masterpiece Theatre has undoubtedly brought me.

I plot the first 5 or 6 chapters quite minutely, and also the end. So I know where I am going but not how I'm going to get there, which gives characters the chance to develop organically, as happens in real life as you get to know a person.

I don't always set stories in villages, more often in towns. But always in smallish communities because the characters' actions are more visible there, and the dramatic tension is heightened.

I'm a third done into a new book but sorry - I have a superstition about talking about it!

Oddly my name has been no professional help at all! It seems to have made no difference. I admire him hugely, both for his benevolence and his enormous psychological perception.

I've experienced huge kindness here, a great welcome and some very generous reviews without the snide social edge I often suffer from at home. I'm not patronized here either, which I much appreciate!

You can't be too old to be a writer, but you can definitely be too young!

All TV can do is capture the spirit of a book because the medium is so utterly different. But I'm very grateful for the readers that Masterpiece Theatre has undoubtedly brought me.

I always love writing about children.

I am not a fan of the cupcake image. This idea that you can distract a girl with something frivolous like a cake or shoes or handbags, and she won't be a threat to men.

I am often criticised for being rather accessible.

I don't need to marry again. I've been married twice, and I love it when it works, but these days we live until we're 80 and marriages are jolly long.

I'm actually rather orderly, although the way that I write is not.

I'm an enormous fan of people who have had a lot of faith in themselves, and been on a tremendous journey.

I'm no lyrical stylist; you wouldn't pick me for a perfect sentence, and I certainly wouldn't describe my novels as intellectual.

My advice would be not to write until after 35. You need some experience, and for life to knock you about a bit. Growing up is so hard you probably won't have much emotion to spare anyway.

My view of an excellent novel was probably set in the golden age of fiction in the 19th century: narrative, character and voice are of equal importance.

Out of respect to writers, you have to read the book in the way in which the author visualised it going out into the world.

You can change yourself and you can change the situation but you absolutely cannot change other people. Only they can do that.

You can't help parts of yourself leaking into other characters.

You can't love a library of e-books. You can't furnish a room with e-books.

You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.

Times have changed since George Herbert... but the principle and spirit in which he ministered as a priest remains an inspiration and model for all priests.

The experience of life consists of the experience which the spirit has of itself in matter and as matter, in mind and as mind, in emotion, as emotion, etc.

Had the Hebrews not been disturbed in their progress a thousand and more years ago, they would have solved all the great problems of civilization which are being solved now under all the difficulties imposed by the spirit of the Middle Ages.

Every true prayer is a prayer of the Church; by means of that prayer the Church prays, since it is the Holy Spirit living in the Church, Who in every single soul 'prays in us with unspeakable groanings'.

Each atom of the Holy Spirit is intelligent, and like all other matter has solidity, form, and size, and occupies space.

The tender heart, the broken and contrite spirit, are to me far above all the joys that I could ever hope for in this vale of tears.

Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art.

It is a common temptation of Satan to make us give up the reading of the Word and prayer when our enjoyment is gone; as if it were of no use to read the Scriptures when we do not enjoy them, and as if it were no use to pray when we have no spirit of prayer.

To my mind, the most important aspect of the Nobel Awards is that they bring home to the masses of the peoples of all nations, a realization of their common interests. They carry to those who have no direct contact with science the international spirit.

It's about the power of design and the power of the human spirit. It's above paying anybody to do something stupid for money like reality television does - like ambushing people.

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.

I see Canada as a country torn between a very northern, rather extraordinary, mystical spirit which it fears and its desire to present itself to the world as a Scotch banker.

Man can never be a woman's equal in the spirit of selfless service with which nature has endowed her.

I was part of it, and I am still part of it today in terms of what it means to a whole new generation of people who are interested in the enduring energy, achievements, spirit and creativity that exemplified our era.

I get excited about what the Holy Spirit is doing now through all the people he is refining and raising up all over this planet. I love connections and relationship and networking but it must be led by the Spirit.

In the report made on behalf of the C.G.T. we affirmed that the Peace Treaty should, in accordance with the spirit of workers' organizations, lay the first foundations of the United States of Europe.

Once spirit was God, then it became man, and now it is even becoming mob.

It is the spirit and not the form of law that keeps justice alive.

To me, there is spirit in a reed. It's a living thing, a weed, really, and it does contain spirit of a sort. It's really an ancient vibration.

Close by the Rights of Man, at the least set beside them, are the Rights of the Spirit.

There is a spirit and a need and a man at the beginning of every great human advance. Every one of these must be right for that particular moment of history, or nothing happens.

There are only two forces in the world, the sword and the spirit. In the long run the sword will always be conquered by the spirit.

Next to a circus there ain't nothing that packs up and tears out faster than the Christmas spirit.

People who are always taking care of their health are like misers, who are hoarding a treasure which they have never spirit enough to enjoy.

It is necessary to be concerned about the importance of educating a really beautiful human spirit.

If you be faithful, you will have that honor that comes from God: his Spirit will say in your hearts, Well done, good and faithful servants.

Everything is vain and tortures the spirit instead of calming and satisfying it.