I knew it like destiny, and at the same time, I knew it as choice.

It's true that heroes are inspiring, but mustn't they also do some rescuing if they are to be worthy of their name? Would Wonder Woman matter if she only sent commiserating telegrams to the distressed?

Sometimes I think of you and I feel giddy. Memory makes me lightheaded, drunk on champagne. All the things we did. And if anyone has said this was the price I would have agreed to pay it. That surprises me; that with the hurt and the mess comes a shift of recognition. It was worth it. Love is worth it.

In this life, you have to be your own hero.

You have to engage with people who are different from you and try to work with their thinking and their mind. That's a real challenge.

I drove to Oxford with my van full of petrol and tin cans, as I didn't know there were service stations on the motorway. I pulled up on the hard shoulder and got my cans out. Then I filled up and set off again. That's how naive I was - so much not a cosmopolitan girl.

Children, I suppose, are always unfinished business: they begin as part of your own body, and continue as separate as another continent.