My mum taught me that redheads shouldn't wear pink, red or orange, but if you choose the right shade, such as a bright orange or a cherry red, it can look fabulous.

It makes me upset, if not angry, when people assume that there can be no morality without a religious framework. If there's a moral framework without all that religious stuff, it's more valuable.

I swim more or less every day.

I try to be classic without being mumsy.

I've never particularly liked the idea of looking back; I'd rather look forward

I look at myself objectively and in a way I see myself as a commodity. Your name becomes somehow outside yourself. Now, when I'm at home being Mrs. Scarfe, that's when I'm most myself.

I know some actresses who used to be older than me who are now younger than me - I don't know how they do it.

I think one wants lots of different lives.

I think all good writing is a struggle. To write as well as you feel you can has to be a struggle, almost by definition, because you could always improve.

We get a lot of overseas people wanting to order cakes.

Listening to my regular favourites - Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms and so on - I always feel, quite misguidedly, that nothing can be too bad if such beauty and brilliance exists in the world.

The books we love, they love us back. And just as we mark our places in the pages, those pages leave their marks on us.

Common sense speaks clearly...if you listen

Art, whatever form it takes, requires hard work, craftsmanship and creativity. As a writer, I know my grammar, cadence, the music of prose, and the art of the narrative.

Journey into the beautiful dream that is life...the end is only the beginning.

I fix things now and then, more often tweak HTML and make scripts to do things.

As to the presidency, the two happiest days of my life were those of my entrance upon the office and my surrender of it.

The chocolate and crisps come in at times. You have to allow the little things that make you happy. I'm not extreme about what I eat.

Every procedure for getting a cat to take a pill works fine - once. Like the Borg, they learn.

The personal ego must be suppressed and replaced with the 'universal ego.'

Painting for a whole morning gives one as excellent an appetite for one's dinner, as old Abraham Tucker acquired for his by riding over Banstead Downs.