If you're a queen, you're powerless, so I'd probably demote myself and go shopping.

Who wants to be normal when you can be unique?

I hate this image of me as a prim Edwardian. I want to shock everyone.

I don't think kids have a problem with death. It's us older ones who are nearer to it, that start being frightened.

Journalists are always calling my features Edwardian or Victorian, whatever that means. I am small, and people were smaller in those times. I'm pale and sickly-looking. I look fragile-like a doll. But sometimes I just wish I had less of a particular look, one that was more versatile.

When you write for very young children what they want is something familiar and safe and stereotyped.

I just thought I‘d never look good in what everybody else wore. So there’s no point trying. You just have to do what suits you, and it doesn’t matter if you don’t look like everybody else. Be you. That’s our gift and we’ve got to celebrate that, but it does take ages. I was wracked with self-doubt for years. I get spasms of it even now – I’m not indelibly self-confident.