I spoke French a bit, and I could speak a bit of this and that, and when you were taught those things by people who couldn't really do it, you can do some pretty wonderfully, imaginative horrific things to teachers.

It was a very odd household, because the grandmothers were so different. Both of them had their own pianos. So it would be duelling pianos by grandmothers.

I never used to sleep much. I think we all go through a bit of a time like that where we rage about. If we don't, I don't think you've ever really lived.

I was often very, incredibly naughty, and if I didn't come home at tea time I used to be sent to bed without any dinner. But people used to bring me things: I was better fed in bed.

Very quickly, without really looking back or trying, I was just suddenly lifted into another sphere.

My mother felt it was time that I had some parental control, so I went off to America and went to New York.

I sort of was good at writing essays. I was never very good at mathematics, and I was never very good at algebra. I loved science, but I wasn't sure of it.