Even for a girl like me, then, there comes a day when she can stop surviving and start living. To survive, you have to look good or talk good. But to end your story well-- here is the truth-- you have to talk yourself out of it.

When I reached Fort Binjemma, for example, where my grandfather was stationed for a while, the whole Victorian fort was decaying. Barbed wire surrounded it, spray paint on the ancient walls claimed it as private property, and the moat where my grandfather and his men had grown crops - in desperation as the siege's hunger bit - was completely overgrown with bushes and trees.

We must see all scars as beauty. Okay? This will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, 'I survived'.

Courage is a muscle that develops through use. It's no use waiting for some inner fire to conveniently become apparent at the moment of crisis - that's cartoon stuff.

I do think it is harder to acknowledge our strengths, or to forgive ourselves and each other for our shortcomings, when there has not been a result we can all agree on.

Looking after a very sick child was the Olympics of parenting.

The Daily Mail can't say 'asylum-seeker' without saying 'foreign criminal' in the same sentence. I'm sure it's practically editorial policy.