Sue Perkins

“Sometimes we don't want to be tethered to yesterday. It's nicer to forget. Maybe the gaps in our memory are there for a reason, evolutionary perhaps, to give us the space to grow, to get away from childishness or childish things. Or maybe it's so we have the chance to invent, or at least include, some magic in our yesterdays, surely the consolation of getting older, of moving away from youth, is that we can shape our past to our fantasies. So, even if the present isn't going the way we want it, we can stand and remember our earlier selves as exciting and funny and daring”

“I don't want my life to just be about me.”

“I have an almost entirely written correspondence with a few friends of mine who are really busy. We exchange quite long and sometimes quite whimsical, sometimes quite meaningful, sometimes silly letters.”

“I am happier with my face since I started wearing glasses at 27, because they punctuate it. They also hide one of my biggest defects, my baggy eyes.”

“You can say a lot of things about me, but I own my own opinions. They're not for sale.”

“I had an operation on my cornea when I was little, and remember being deeply enamoured with the team who looked after me.”

“I'm known for being quite gobby, but also, I'm quite old fashioned in the sense that I like writing letters.”

“Just when my biological clock started ticking, I found out it was going to be virtually impossible. And it was very hard.”

“My mum has recorded all my programmes and not watched one. My dad says he finds it embarrassing.”

“I am an appalling softie. But somehow, somewhere along the line, I've learnt how to hide it.”

“As a child, I was awkward, fidgety, and shy, with a total inability to concentrate, and in that regard, I'm exactly the same as an adult.”

“I have a voice inside. A voice that I am forever trying to silence. A voice that calls me in when I want to be out, playing. A voice that is always sad. That is always terrified. That always wants to sit in the darkened room, away from noise and movement and colour - away from any experience that could prove to be challenging.”

“I was bookish and awkward and wanted a means of expressing the millions of emotions flying around inside me. The piano seemed as good an outlet as any.”

“It's so hard to do the right thing with a pen and a piece of paper and a set of abstract thoughts.”

“With comedy, it's not always a blessing to be beautiful because part of it is self-parody and gurning.”

“I always want to have fun and be silly and be childish. I'm very childish. I am at my happiest when I am a child and I am just playing.”

“A great conductor is an alchemical force: someone who can absorb the historical weight of a famous melody, the expectations of an audience, and the mercurial brilliance of a host of musicians, and shape them all to his or her interpretative ends.”

“You build up coming out to this horrible moment. It's so stressful, there's so much adrenaline, and there's so much primal fear - even though I know my parents to be good people - that they're going to reject you.”

“I don't look great. I'm a bit ramshackle.”

“I usually like 'The Guardian' and its journalistic bent, but sometimes 'The Independent.' And if I'm being totally honest, some weekends I'll have a 'News of the Screws' or a 'Sunday Spurt.' You need high and lowbrow.”