I'm a duty solicitor, so I can't fix someone's life; all I can do is fix the problem I've got in front of my eyes.

I decided that if I want to write about a female hero in the 1920s, I'm going to have to give her all the advantages I can because she has serious disadvantages in being a woman. I wasn't going to have her cowed or overawed by class, so she had to be titled.

I got out of difficult situations when many of my classmates didn't because I was smart, and I was lucky, and my parents were amazingly literate and helpful.

The stories from World War I are worse than anything I have ever read.

I think it is rather heroic to go into a war zone where everyone is trying to kill you, and you have no way of shooting back.

This was cheering. The real world was still there, it still contained puppies being puppies and cats being cats.