I have decided to keep a full journal, in the hope that my life will perhaps seem more interesting when it is written down.

It's no surprise to me that intellectuals commit suicide, go mad or die from drink. We feel things more than other people. We know the world is rotten and that chins are ruined by spots.

Will you lie to me and promise to read them? Books need to be read. The pages need to be turned.

I have decided to keep a full journal, in the hope that my life will perhaps seem more interesting when it is written down.

The monarchy is finished. It was finished a while ago, but they're still making the corpses dance.

Every time I start a new piece of work, I spend a long while under the duvet thinking I can't do it.

I married two weeks after my 18th birthday, far too young, and by the time I was 23 I was a single mother of three small children, Sean, Daniel and Victoria, living in a prefab house.