Sue Townsend

“When all my kids were at home, I used to write from midnight onwards.”

“I used to think I had nice arms, but I don't even think that anymore.”

“I always feel as if I'm a disappointment: that people want a grand dame in furs like Barbara Taylor Bradford.”

“Watching 'The Jeremy Kyle Show' is my guilty pleasure.”

“I hate it when people call me a 'national treasure.' It takes away your bite and makes you feel like a harmless old golden Labrador.”

“Nothing was true for long. In time, everything was deconstructed.”

“Sometimes I rant, in a comical way, about how the gods give with one hand and take with the other.”

“I always wanted to be Jo in 'Little Women.' She's a bit reckless and feckless, always getting into trouble like me. But I'm probably more like Madame Bovary.”

“I took my sight and mobility for granted.”

“I take life very seriously. I can laugh at it, because what else can you do? But it's a hard daily battle.”

“I seem to be able to get depressed quite easily without any reason.”

“I do think that books, good books, free you. They make you feel a citizen of the world and things like class, sex and age don't matter. They're the greatest leveler.”

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

“'The Gambler' by Dostoevsky. It was the first time I realised that it was possible to have good and evil in one person. It led me to read a lot of Russian literature.”

“I always write back to people who are kind enough to write to me. Actually, I don't write - I recline on my red velvet sofa with my feet on the coffee table and dictate the letters to my eldest son.”

“I'm getting to the end of my magnifying glasses now. One eye's gone completely. The other is gradually dimming. Dimming - that sounds very dramatic, doesn't it? I'm so lucky. I can still make a living - and the same kind of living.”

“Yes, I hate it when people call me a 'national treasure'. It takes away your bite and makes you feel like a harmless old golden Labrador.”

“Live with all of your senses.”

“Yes - I am usually overweight. I have had to be interested in diet because of being diabetic for 30 years and having kidney failure.”

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