Jeanette Winterson

To create a past that seemed authentic but would be a fiction, you need an invented language.

I think we still believe that ambition is for boys.

London is a small place, and it is very incestuous. People know where you live. Everybody is sort of on top of each other.

Whether you want to call it God or the mystery of the cosmos doesn't matter to me.

I wanted to cause trouble, but I know now it stays with you.

I never cared about money.

I believe in communication; books communicate ideas and make bridges between people.

I didn't mind being unpopular at school, because everyone else was a heathen.

I don't understand why people talk of art as a luxury when it's a mind-altering possibility.

I think heterosexuality and homosexuality are a kind of psychosis, and the truth is somewhere in the middle.

It is helpful for a woman artist not to have a husband.

My characters are always on the outside; the spotlight's not on them. But they do get somewhere.