The things you leave school knowing - some dates and long division - so much of it has been of no use to me. Schools should teach the basics of cookery, first aid, how to look after your money and how to speak foreign languages. Useful things.

I am proud of my cake-making image but life is not that perfect. There are socks in my fruit bowl.

I think all good writing is a struggle. To write as well as you feel you can has to be a struggle, almost by definition, because you could always improve.

I look at myself objectively and in a way I see myself as a commodity. Your name becomes somehow outside yourself. Now, when I'm at home being Mrs. Scarfe, that's when I'm most myself.

I try to be classic without being mumsy.

Of all the things I do, acting is the thing that grabs most, but there's another level on which it strikes me as being a little silly. In the end you're dressing up and deciding to be somebody.

An actor's job is about putting across the author's intention; I don't think of myself on the same level as a creator.