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.

If you've got a lot of children, I think you let the other children bring them up more and you just sort of step in and do stuff like every now and again.

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

Blank House was exactly a nice empty sheet where nothing was accountable because you were so naughty that you were in Blank House.

Any woman who marries an Italian must accept the undeniable fact that she has also married his mother.

At boarding school you had to wear your name across your chest and your back, and obviously I had a pretty funny name. It wasn't Brown or Smith or Hughes.

I got through my teen years by being a bit of a clown.