Zitat des Tages von Joanne Harris:
One of the things that writing has taught me is that fiction has a life of its own. Fictional places are sometimes more real than the view from our bedroom window. Fictional people can sometimes become as close to us as our loved ones.
Anything based on ancient texts is difficult for a modern reader to get their head around.
A little tantrum in real life seems so much bigger online.
I don't think I've ever had a mentor. The closest thing is my friend Christopher Fowler, another writer. Chris kept me sane for a long time before I made it.
I'm not fond of cities: the constant activity and swarms of people.
I love it when my books cause controversy, when people argue violently about the ending.
It may be something to do with my having been to a girls' school, but I'm far more comfortable making male friendships than female ones. My friends tend to be men and their significant others.
I have an English identity and a French identity. When I'm in France, I'm more outgoing. And the French part of me cooks, whereas the English part of me writes.
If you want to know what's important to a culture, learn their language.
I have an advanced degree in procrastination and another one in paranoia.
I am fascinated by how people eat and what it reveals about them.
I dream a lot, in colour and in sound and scent. Quite a few of my stories have come from dreams.
Online communities are an expression of loneliness.
I first saw the island of Noirmoutier when I was two weeks old. I think it's probably safe to say that I didn't fully appreciate it at the time; but I grew to love it as year after year I spent holidays there at my grandparents' cottage.
I had a great grandmother who believed in so many strange superstitions. She used to tell the future from the things that catch on to the hem of your skirt when you've been sewing, and different colored threads would mean different things... Of course, all that influenced me quite a lot as a child.
I'm quite an untidy person in a lot of ways. But order makes me happy. I have to have a clear desk and a tidy desktop, with as few visual distractions as possible. I don't mind sound distractions, but visual ones freak me out.
Writing books and being paid for it - it's not like winning the Lottery. You can't suddenly go, 'Yippee!' and start throwing tenners in the air. I've done pretty well out of it, but certainly not enough to say, 'Right, that's me set up for life.'
I am not at all a chocoholic. I would rather eat anchovy toast.
I don't tend to do category fiction very well. One of my problems when I was starting off was that publishers were hesitant to handle my books because they were never sure what I was going to do next.
If you want something you can have it, but you have to do some work. It's the ethic my mother brought me up with.
From a very young age my mother persuaded me that I could write for fun, but I had to have a proper job - very good advice.
As authors, we all expect criticism from time to time, and we all have our ways of coping with unfriendly reviews.
I tend to write about more than one generation because as a child I had contact with more than one generation; it was normal to be around older people.
People reveal so much of their mental processes online, simply because the psychological effect of anonymity just means that a whole raft of inhibitions are left alone when people log on.
Some areas of technology really don't interest me at all, but I welcome anything that makes life easier instead of harder.
In the old days of literature, only the very thick-skinned - or the very brilliant - dared enter the arena of literary criticism. To criticise a person's work required equal measures of erudition and wit, and inferior critics were often the butt of satire and ridicule.
Of course I didn't pioneer the use of food in fiction: it has been a standard literary device since Chaucer and Rabelais, who used food wonderfully as a metaphor for sensuality.
I'm politically inclined towards the left, but I don't like to be in anyone's gang; I'm a bit of a loose cannon.
For me, the magic of Hawaii comes from the stillness, the sea, the stars.
I was convinced I'd hate Twitter - but I've come to like it very much. I use it mostly to keep in touch with friends and colleagues I wish I could see more often - I sometimes feel a little isolated living in Yorkshire, and it's nice to have the contact.
