Explore Quotes by Jane Green

I write in the mornings once the kids have gone to school, taking my laptop and a coffee to a little writer's room in town where I plant noise-cancelling headphones on my head and get to work.

Taking a risk is always frightening, but I gave myself a set period of time and had enough money to see me through. I operated from the belief that things would be okay, that if I wasn't successful I would find myself a job, but either way, I would be fine.

I read so much about men who aren't what they seem, and particularly stories written by women who found out their husbands had a slew of secrets they knew nothing about.

I have been incredibly lucky with my novels but I had absolutely no idea if anyone would be interested in a cookbook. So I started to think about self-publishing.

I have a business manager and a book-keeper who deals with our household bills. My husband and I sit down with her for a weekly report on how much money is going out, but I'm not terribly interested, and I don't have the patience for it.

I had always presumed that my first book would be published, but I never dreamt that I would write 15 bestsellers and have this wonderful life in America that I have entirely built for myself.

I don't listen to anything when I'm writing. I need total quiet, which is astounding, given that I spent years working for a newspaper and having to write features surrounded by ringing phones and people shouting.

As a teenager, you are still entirely wrapped up in yourself.

By the time I sat down to write 'Family Pictures,' I hadn't written anything in almost two years, and writing, I have discovered, is a muscle: if it isn't exercised, it will atrophy.

I spent the first summer after my diagnosis creeping about in giant sun hats and tents, cursing the sun, staying inside as much as possible. Now I am beginning to think the most important thing is educated sun exposure, because the melanomas of today are not caused by today's sunbathing, but by our childhoods and early adolescence.

I started to think about the assumptions we make that everyone we meet operates under the same moral code, and how betrayed we feel when that isn't the case.

I think friendship is more important than love, but that love that grows out of friendship is the very best of all.

When I was a student, I had a part time job as a barmaid at a dodgy pub in Kent.

I always thought I'd be the quintessential Earth Mother, but when I had Harrison, I really wasn't the natural mother that I always thought I would be. I adore children, but I was never that interested in newborn babies.

I know plenty of people with kids in elite, private schools and had heard many stories. I have drifted into the homes of some of those very wealthy families in New York and am fascinated with the dynamic and how much freedom the children are given.

A friend of mine suddenly announced she had written a novel and got a publishing deal; I thought, 'Hang on... if she can do it, I can bloody well do it, too.' That novel went to a bidding war, and went on to be a huge best-seller.

Just as there are moments when the words flow and it feels like the easiest job in the world, there are many more when I think I have nothing to say, and my journalism training taught me that writing is a job, that you write whether you are inspired or not, and that the only way to unlock creativity is to write through it.

My e-books sales have overtaken everything else, so I think all the marketing has become very much driven by the author now because of social media.

I am not a big skier, but I love apres-ski wear and imagine I would look great in an all-white, fur-trimmed ski suit.

I left my job as a feature writer on a newspaper to write a book, then sent it off to a number of agents thinking they would all reject me. Within a week, most had come back to say they loved what they had read, which then led to a bidding war for my first two novels.

I treated the first few books as a very long journalistic exercise. I thought of every chapter as an article that needed to be finished.