“I've got my organic veg patch and fruit; we're very garden-obsessed, my husband and I. He designed a garden for me for Christmas, so beautiful! Alasdhair's very good at the proportion and ground wo...”

“I ride my bike, I work out, I do a bit of, er, dancey things.”

“It wasn't easy navigating publicity when I started, because I grew up with 'being famous,' and I'm just not into it, and I guess defensiveness gets read into that. And I didn't get an easy ride at ...”

“My mum had a massive influence on me, not just in what she wore and how she looked, but in her spirit. She was married to one of the most famous men in the world, and she didn't wear any makeup, ev...”

“Strength on its own in a woman is quite abrasive and not terribly attractive all the time.”

“There's no excuse for fur in this day and age.”

“No black woman writer in this culture can write "too much". Indeed, no woman writer can write "too much"...No woman has ever written enough.”

“When you reduce a woman to writing, she makes you think of a thousand other women”

“I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.”

“There are many things that make a man irritable when he arrives home from work in the evening and a sensible wife will usually notice the storm-signals and will leave him alone until he simmers down.”

“Oblivion, she thought. That was the world she lived in. It was what they should name some countries, towns, and places.”

“A lot of men wouldn't like being called a romantic. It's not macho enough.'Quite often men are fools.”

“He could feel the Great Iron War coming to an end now, but he no longer had his finger on the button. The curtains of the world were about to close, and the play of life would soon be over. There w...”

“The place trembled with sound. I didn't need to do anything. They would do it all. But you had to be careful. Drunk as they were they could immediately detect any false gesture, any false word. You...”

“If you dont see yourself as a winner, then you cannot perform as a winner.”