Which is strange - I've always thought of myself as someone who writes out of difficulty. And I did do that, but I came out on the side of light more often than not.

There are responsibilities which are parental responsibilities and those are the types of things we prepare the next generation for, but no one tells you how to answer the kids' questions in the backseat of the car when they want to know what the world is for or where they came from or why any of this is happening.

I'm so moved to hear Celia Johnson again, so lovely.

There were male colleges, and there were very few female colleges.

My career is chequered. Then I think I got pigeon-holed in humour; Shakespeare is not my thing.

Little girls, I am in the business of putting old heads on young shoulders, and all my pupils are the crème de la crème. Give me a girl at an impressionable age and she is mine for life.

People say it gets better but it doesn't. It just gets different, that's all.