I still fall asleep with the TV on, because I'm used to falling asleep with people yelling 'Action!' and 'Cut!

The first time I saw 'Sunset Boulevard' I was probably eight or nine years old, and it really struck me how it's so simply put and elegant, yet there's so much going on.

I don't think if you asked any of my childhood friends they would say that I had a weird childhood; they might say there weren't a lot of regular rules, the conversations in the house were always very open, dreams were a great thing to talk about, everybody was making something all the time.

I think that laughter is very close to terror and horror. Maybe that's just me, but that sort of all - over rush that happens when you are either laughing or terrified or weeping...? I think that comedians, in and of themselves, make other people laugh because they aren't necessarily the happiest people in the world. So they know a lot about dark things.

The closer you are to people, the more you realise what has happened to them.

I still fall asleep with the TV on, because I'm used to falling asleep with people yelling 'Action!' and 'Cut!

Writing was my companion and stories were my companion when I was bedridden and didn't think I was going to walk again and all of that treacherous stuff. And stories are how you can comfort a child. It's certainly how I comforted my daughter, in good and bad times.