Lisa Jewell

“People with big ideas worry. They lie awake at night and fret as they try to climb up the social or financial ladder. They probably feel proud of themselves for what they've achieved, but I'm proud of the fact that I've done very little - and hence have little to worry about - and I've still got somewhere.”

“My parents' marriage was, on an aesthetic level, very pleasing to behold.”

“The only way you can write about a happy family in a drama is to make them unhappy.”

“Agents and publishers are always looking for something 'different,' a fresh viewpoint and a new voice, not just re-hashed versions of stuff that's gone before.”

“I look about my house and see there are lots of lovely things in it, but I constantly buy more.”

“If one of my romantic-comedy colleagues had written and directed 'Love Actually,' they would have been torn limb from limb. I thought it was awful, contrived, dreadful. I could see every twist and turn. I thought it was despicable. It was the writing that got me.”

“There are people out there who would enjoy my books but wouldn't pick them up because they think it's not going to be for them. I find it infuriating.There's a lot more going on in my books than just romance.”

“Writing a book is not easy.”

“If you feel that your father was lacking as a husband, it affects your own choice of man.”

“My first husband dragged me out of London and made me live in the suburbs in Surrey - not where you want to be when you're 23.”

“I am the oldest of three girls and the only one not named after one of my father's ex-girlfriends.”

“I am a terrible, terrible typist. I could not have been a writer in the age of typewriters.”

“'Ralph's Party' was a romantic comedy, and at the end of it, the two main characters, Ralph and Jen, kiss for the first time and think they're going to be happy together. Then, 10 years later, I wrote a sequel in which they've been together for 10 years and are about to split up.”

“That whole idea of chick lit being a thing that you just lump all the commercial female writers into - it went on for years.I'd switch on the radio, and I'd hear, 'Two female authors are here to discuss chick lit - is it dead?' and I'd think, 'Argh, no, not again. Are we seriously still having this conversation?'”

“No man ever fell in love with me for the way I fill out a Lycra dress.”

“My marriage is far from perfect. We're not hand-holdy and soft. We are snippy and bickery. We sleep in separate beds because we have no tolerance of each other's night-time idiosyncrasies.”

“For me, the optimum circumstances for writing a book are those of stultifying routine.”

“If you can start and finish a book, then you're already a million miles ahead of all those people who talk about wanting to write a book.”

“My father, Anthony, was a textile agent who sold fabric in the West End and was away a lot. He was very glamorous. When he first met my mum, he swept her off into this big, social world.”

“When I travel, I can leave everything at home apart from books. I curate my holiday reading rigorously and would be devastated if I found I'd left one at home.”