I do believe in an afterlife. I try to be at one with people and try to love life as much as I can.

Cuba is such a beautiful country, and everywhere you go, there's music and people dancing - especially in Havana.

I just love doing costume dramas; I am very lucky, as I see myself as a part-time time traveller.

I am always baffled by age, but to be honest with you, I feel like I am about 34. I feel better now and I am certainly healthier than I was in my early 30s. I am more rounded too.

I'm on a constant path of self-discovery and change. I'm trying to become a better person, a nicer person. I love therapy - it's brilliant.

I am extremely content in my life - sometimes to the point where I really should find something to moan about!

I think it's healthy to be insecure, to have nerves.

My dad's so likeable, you wouldn't feel in competition with him. If any boyfriends have ever felt that, they're long gone.

Ever since I can remember feeling love for my parents, I've been frightened of losing them.

Being a mum is something that's never bothered me too much. I have never felt a strong need to have children, but I am not averse to it either.

It's very hard to dramatise something factual and not make it look overdone, but also not to make it look so under-dramatised that it's dull.

Know the limitations of your mind, and then excel them.Know the limitations of your heart, and then surpass them.Know the limitations of your soul, and then transcend them.

There are no seven wonders of the world in the eyes of a child. There are seven million.

The way I see it if you want the rainbow you gotta put up with the rain.

Beauty and truth may be attributes of good writing but if the writer deliberately aims at truth he is likely to find that what he has hit is the didactic.

I only want to sleep . . . and never wake.

Between 1991 and 1997 I had really serious asthma.

While writing this book [Lincoln in the Bardo], [idea of inclusion] occurred to me, you either believe in the Constitution or you don't. If you do, it's intense in what it wants of us.

The only thing that will really matter at the end of your life is: Did you love completely?

You've got to realize the world will never be the same.

What a way to pay a man back for helping you. Gah, I suck as a human being.’ (Shahara)