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 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.

I think one's feelings waste themselves in words; they ought all to be distilled into actions which bring results.

We need people out talking about the President, explaining, agreeing with and praising his actions.

We have made mistakes. In our haste to do all things for all people, we did not foresee the full consequences of our actions. And when the people raised their voices, we didn't hear. But our deafness was only a temporary condition, and not an irreversible condition.

In addition to a timeline, I have proposed that U.S. troops be removed from front line combat positions in Iraqi cities and towns, turning over daily security patrols, interactions with citizens, and any offensive security actions to the Iraqis themselves.

I would certainly choose my jobs depending on the actions of the character. I won't do anything that has to do with child abuse or women's abuse.

When we criticize in Iran the actions of the government, the fundamentalists say that we and the Bush Administration are in the same camp. The funny thing is that human rights activists and Mr. Bush can never be situated in the same group.

I've no regrets. You take responsibility for your actions.

In order to change unwanted habits and actions, it is important to take the time to get to know yourself.

I have long since come to believe that people never mean half of what they say, and that it is best to disregard their talk and judge only their actions.

On the one hand, there are individual actions such as throwing, pushing, touching, rubbing. It is these individual actions that give rise most of the time to abstraction from objects.

The entire race is usually judged by the actions of one man or woman.

My actions to promote peace, the mediation missions which I carried out during many conflicts, which very often occurred between brothers of the same country, are not driven by any ulterior motives or any calculations based on personal ambitions.

Both state and church have as their object actions as well as convictions, the former insofar as they are based on the relations between man and nature, the latter insofar as they are based on the relations between nature and God.

Most of the animated films I watched, the emotions are all prepackaged like canned music, the hand actions, the sighs.

'Tis human actions paint the chart of time.

It would be immoral to walk away from the consequences of our actions, leaving behind anarchy and civil war in Iraq.

You can expect interior enforcement actions in the future.

We want a state wise in its contemplation - just in its actions - and moderate in the reach of government into our lives.

I respect very much the role of the media in our society; I think they can be very, very helpful. They serve as a very useful check, sort of a watchdog over the actions of the government, and I respect that.

Our actions are the results of our intentions and our intelligence.

Animals are reliable, many full of love, true in their affections, predictable in their actions, grateful and loyal. Difficult standards for people to live up to.

A man's most glorious actions will at last be found to be but glorious sins, if he hath made himself, and not the glory of God, the end of those actions.

Our souls may lose their peace and even disturb other people's, if we are always criticizing trivial actions - which often are not real defects at all, but we construe them wrongly through our ignorance of their motives.

Are not laws dangerous which inhibit the passions? Compare the centuries of anarchy with those of the strongest legalism in any country you like and you will see that it is only when the laws are silent that the greatest actions appear.

A little reflection will show us that every belief, even the simplest and most fundamental, goes beyond experience when regarded as a guide to our actions.

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 think it's very important that you make your own decision about what you are. Therefore you're responsible for your actions, so you don't blame other people.

The Social-Democratic Federation took part in all the political and economic struggles of the English working class; it took pains to bring Socialist views home to them, not only through agitation and propaganda, but also by actions.