I have decided to keep a full journal, in the hope that my life will perhaps seem more interesting when it is written down.

Will you lie to me and promise to read them? Books need to be read. The pages need to be turned.

Yes, I hate it when people call me a 'national treasure'. It takes away your bite and makes you feel like a harmless old golden Labrador.

Love is the only thing that keeps me sane.

I married two weeks after my 18th birthday, far too young, and by the time I was 23 I was a single mother of three small children, Sean, Daniel and Victoria, living in a prefab house.

Most social problems could be helped or prevented if people had more money and practical advice.

I don't know why women are so mad about flowers. Personally, they leave me cold. I prefer trees.

Every time I start a new piece of work, I spend a long while under the duvet thinking I can't do it.

There's only one thing more boring than listening to other people's dreams, and that's listening to their problems.

I think we take it for granted that if you are with your husband after 30 years, then he is the love of your life.

I am from the working class. I am now what I was then. No amount of balsamic vinegar and Prada handbags could make me forget what it was like to be poor.

Never one to take the easy way out. Would miss out on too much.

Hitting at the top of the order is a good thing. You get more at-bats. I'm excited to see how this develops.

The emphasis on practice is because it is the only time in your life you can steer your karmic situation.

I think photography has made us see the landscape in a very dull way - that's one of its effects. It's not spatial.

We don't need a president who just says, "Gentlemen, start your engines." We need a president who says, America, let's start our economy and put people back to work.

I rather despise claims to objectivity in philosophy; the point of view is the thing.

I don't believe that it's true that the poor will always be with us. I think that kind of pious fatalism is just an excuse for keeping things the way they are.

What we fight with is so small, and when we win, it makes us small. What we want is to be defeated, decisively, by successively greater things

From the moment I told her about my dad, it was as if her whole body sighed in relief. As if someone else’s misery comforted her, made her feel as if she wasn’t alone.

Don't be sharp or flat; just be natural.