Being clever was when you looked at how things were and used the evidence to work out something new.

I started writing books for children because I could illustrate them myself and because, in my innocence, I thought they'd be easier.

You could ask for hugs if you were feeling sad or you'd hurt yourself, but when it happened spontaneously it made you feel warm inside.

The word "metaphor" means carrying something from one place to another . . . and it is when you describe something by using a word for something that it isn't. This means that the word "metaphor" is a metaphor. I think it should be called a lie because a pig is not like a day and people people do not have skeletons in their cupboards. And when I try and make a picture of the phrase in my head it just confuses me because imagining and apple in someone's eye doesn't have anything to do with liking someone a lot and it makes you forget what the person was talking about.

There was a time in my life when I was going in and out of houses that were extraordinarily different - from a working-class terrace in Northampton to the homes of friends who were really very wealthy. It was quite an odd position to be in, I realise looking back, and quite a nice one.

I've written 16 children's books and five unpublished novels. Some of the latter were breathtakingly bad.

I've worked in television long enough to know that when you stop enjoying that type of thing you go home and do something else.