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Women are far and away the bigger consumers of fiction than men, but men are still far and away the more reviewed, the more critically esteemed, the more respected. That can get frustrating.

Far more women read fiction than men, and because of this, novels have become marginalised as serious texts.

There is still a funny notion that women should not write violent fiction.

Writers and readers are still trying to work out unresolved problems between men and women, and that is why millions of women around the world are hooked on romantic fiction. So am I.

Women are never the protagonists; we're always reactionary against everything that's done to us. I like people who write for women that have got a bit more about them.

People aren't so interested in seeing movies about women's problems.

My own belief is that most people are trying to do their best. It doesn't mean they have no nasty side, or that they don't have a bad temper, or that they have never done anything they feel ashamed of. But fiction operates on people waking up trying to be horrible, and I don't think most people are trying to be horrible.

Literary fiction is kept alive by women. Women read more fiction, period.

I think women are sick and tired of being portrayed as victims, a lot of the time anyway, the bulk of their time on film.

I find women as writers and as characters are operating within narrow confines. They inherit a kind of ghetto of the soul. I'm trying to enlarge the spectrum.