We know that children living in a household with someone in work do better in school, have better educational attainment, and are more likely to have a job later in life than children growing up in a home where no one works.

I guess, as a young girl growing up in Liverpool in the '80s, when unemployment was high, my ideal job would have been to have been Minister for Employment to see, can you solve these problems? Can you get people into work?

I always thought, as I was growing up, that I'd be married with children. That hasn't happened.

When I was growing up, my parents put money into food, utility bills, and the mortgage.

I try to stay focused on my creativity.

Because of my faith and my imagination, I was able to enjoy my childhood, even though it was tough.

I believe writers need to be chameleons, or like Meryl Streep, who can play all sorts of characters. A good writer should be able to cross gender lines and people of all social classes. So for me, writing from a male point of view would be a great challenge, that I would look forward to taking on.

An artist never works under ideal conditions. If they existed, his work wouldn't exist, for the artist doesn't live in a vacuum. Some sort of pressure must exist. The artist exists because the world is not perfect. Art would be useless if the world were perfect, as man wouldn't look for harmony but would simply live in it.