I was fiercely independent and ambitious from a very young age.

My parents are from Manchester but I was brought up in London, Camden Town.

My style is scruffy with a touch of androgyny.

I always wear flat shoes, because I can't walk in anything else.

I've always been an animal lover. People should be made aware of all the issues. Some people think that the whole wearing-fur thing is glamorous, but you can look good without it.

When you love someone so much that you are in pain when you are apart it ends up being destructive. I never want to be in that place again.

I'm always the girl at the party who, within five minutes, has taken my heels off, hitched up my dress in my knickers, and probably spilt drink down my cleavage.

I really fought to make my character not a stereotype. I play a soap star with dyed blonde hair.

I'm playing a very strong character, it's the story of the woman Polish Jews out of the Warsaw ghetto. I've just begun my weapons training and the SAS type training that's getting me fit.

At home it's all Batman and Star Wars and they do gang up on me. Sometimes I don't want to dress up as Darth Vader or play train sets, so I'll go out for a drink with the girls.

I've never got into debt and I've always been in control of my taxes and VAT, but having four children costs a lot. They are my weakness.

I have learned now that while those who speak about one's miseries usually hurt, those who keep silence hurt more.

Adventures are only interesting once you've lived to see the end of them. Before that, they are nothing but fear, and being too cold or too hot or too wet or too hungry, and getting hurt.

Defend myself? I cannot defend the verbal repressions of a boy. A curmudgeonly, cantankerous, ill-tempered, counterfeit boy.

fingers of wind combed the lake into ridges—icy palm prints glistened wherever it rested

I suspect that democracy is not viable in a technologically advanced society. Free people wield too much ability to destroy.

Hot Potato is a very different game when the people playing are starving.

If I go out with someone I need them to sit and give me a cuddle every night. If they don't, I wonder if they still love me.

If you're not spending 80 percent of your time marketing and selling, you are headed for trouble.

If you know but do not do, you are a very unhappy person indeed.

You must give birth to your images. They are the future waiting to be born.