Write a page every single day, even if what you put on the page that day is no good - it's the only way to get better.

It's all in her walk, a cartoon swagger. Part Jayne Mansfield, part Muhammad Ali. Men never know if it's an invitation upstairs or an invitation outside.

When I am in a relationship, I don’t wear lipstick at all. I hate the smearing, the retouching, the constant throb of phoniness as you surreptitiously check the damage in your compact between kisses. I wear lots of mascara to compensate, different colors so I don’t get bored. When I am about to break up with a guy, he has full warning because I start wearing lipstick again.

Everyone asks about how I'll feel about the tattoos and scars in thirty years. I always say: "I'll like them." I've always loved damaged monuments, in architecture and in humans.

At least you know where you are with blood. At least other people can see it.

My radar, after all these years of sanity, is still off when it comes to what people do or don't mean.

I envied women with signature hair-dos, signature perfumes, signature sign-offs. Novelists who tell Vogue Magazine: “I can’t live without my Smythson notebook, Pomegranate Noir cologne by Jo Malone and Frette sheets”. In the grip of madness, materialism begins to look like an admirable belief system.