Quotes from Jane Fallon

My dad used to cut out newspaper ads and post them to me in the hope I'd get a proper job.

You just don't come across proper, deep, loyal friendships very easily later on in life.

When I left university with a history degree, I had no idea what I wanted to do, and I was terrified of accidentally ending up in the wrong career.

After my eye test, I was told I was showing symptoms of glaucoma. I realised - but only in retrospect - that pains in my eyes and the feeling of pressure that I had been experiencing must have been because of that. I'd assumed they were symptoms of migraines.

I've always worked out, but running pushed bits of me harder than anything else I had ever done.

I remember watching a 'Big Brother' contestant saying that she wanted to be a footballer's wife. I thought, 'What is the world coming to?'

I've got a really good group of friends. I don't feel the need to go out and forge new bonds.

I've always been very clear: I never want to be known just as somebody's girlfriend.

I'm not a girly girl at all.

I just feel that if you're going to have kids, you need to believe that, emotionally, you can give them a really good life.

The best thing about a British winter is the cold weather, real fires, frosty mornings. I love living somewhere that has proper seasons.

In the winter, my failsafe dinner party menu has to be my roast chicken or a creamy fish pie with mashed potatoes on top, followed by something like a tarte tatin. My cooking style is quite homely.

Thirty is still the iconic number. It's when people compare their actual lives with what they think they should have achieved.

I am too much of a worrier. I'm the person who thinks about calling round all the hospitals when someone is five minutes later than they said they would be.

I'm not a gossip. The worst thing anyone can say to me is, 'Ooh, I've got some gossip.' I'm like, 'Oh, shut up.'

If you spend too much time in L.A., you might start to lose a sense of what's normal.

What I find weird is that the term 'chick lit' is used to encompass literally anything a woman writes about relationships. It's the assumption that because you're female, you must write in a certain way. I don't understand why that is - it is a bit demeaning.

I'm turning into one of those people who writes to the actors on 'Coronation Street' - a really obsessive fan.

I write about messy relationships - between friends, rivals, married couples, siblings. I'm not really interested in boy/girl romances.

I never show my books to Ricky. His writing is very different, and anyway, he's only read one novel in his life: 'The Catcher in the Rye.'

Whenever I'm out, I have a bit of a yearning to be in my house, to be able to shut the door on the world.

I was never one of those little girls who played with baby dolls and picked names for her firstborn. I was playing in the mud with my dog, doing backflips, and climbing trees.

I tend to make snap judgements about people.

One thing that was drummed into me when I was younger is that you have to make your own way in life, that you mustn't expect anyone else to support you.