I think all good writing is a struggle. To write as well as you feel you can has to be a struggle, almost by definition, because you could always improve.

I enjoy the crafts on the show enormously, too, when we have experts in showing how to make things. You watch them thinking you'll go home and do the things yourself, which is fun. Some I have done myself later on.

We get a lot of overseas people wanting to order cakes.

There's also something of an illusion in that, you can perhaps record a TV thing one month and complete a book the next and then be in a play. Then, if they all come out at once, it looks as if you're actually juggling a million things.

Having cakes as a business certainly changes things for me - I don't now sit at home doing a cake for the fun of it anymore. But it's an extremely happy and pleasureable business to run because people are generally buying cakes for celebrations.

I think one wants lots of different lives.

I look at myself objectively and in a way I see myself as a commodity. Your name becomes somehow outside yourself. Now, when I'm at home being Mrs. Scarfe, that's when I'm most myself.

Acting has been very useful to me.

I think all good writing is a struggle. To write as well as you feel you can has to be a struggle, almost by definition, because you could always improve.

Of all the things I do, acting is the thing that grabs most, but there's another level on which it strikes me as being a little silly. In the end you're dressing up and deciding to be somebody.

An actor's job is about putting across the author's intention; I don't think of myself on the same level as a creator.

As a child, I wanted to marry a farmer, but no doubt the reality would have been very different to the idyll in my head.

I adore food and always have.

I do enjoy fashion - a lot of runway clothes are pretty unwearable, but if moderated, the trends can be worn by just about anyone.

I do find modern jazz quite tricky.

I don't agree with the whole 'my mother's my friend' approach, because you're their mum and there has to be a difference between the generations.

I swim more or less every day.

I try to be classic without being mumsy.

I'm a creature of habit, so I like going to boutiques, rather than larger stores, where I know I'll find something that suits me every time.

I'm not advocating we should all be back in the kitchen and cooking all the time, because life's too short and we've got more interesting things to do. But to rediscover the intense pleasure of making a cake and putting it down on the table is ridiculously satisfying, out of all proportion to the work.

I've never particularly liked the idea of looking back; I'd rather look forward.

It makes me upset, if not angry, when people assume that there can be no morality without a religious framework. If there's a moral framework without all that religious stuff, it's more valuable.

Listening to my regular favourites - Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms and so on - I always feel, quite misguidedly, that nothing can be too bad if such beauty and brilliance exists in the world.

My mum taught me that redheads shouldn't wear pink, red or orange, but if you choose the right shade, such as a bright orange or a cherry red, it can look fabulous.

My parents were not theatrical at all.

Thank God I've never had the sort of intense fame that means you can't walk up the road. That sort of blazing stardom must be difficult to cope with and maintain; my career has just bubbled along happily.

The rehearsal time is almost my favourite part of being an actress, particularly if you're working on a play that hasn't been done before.

Having cakes as a business certainly changes things for me I dont now sit at home doing a cake for the fun of it anymore. But its an extremely happy and pleasureable business to run because people are generally buying cakes for celebrations.

The desire for liberty has also made itself felt as struggle against domestic tyranny or arbitrary rule.

We are all gifted, but we have to discover the gift, uncover the gift, nurture and develop the gift and use it for the Glory of God and for the liberation struggle of our people.

Hope is the struggle of the soul, breaking loose from what is perishable, and attesting her eternity.

Oh, God, I struggle with low self-esteem all the time! I think everyone does. I have so much wrong with me, it's unbelievable!

Every war results from the struggle for markets and spheres of influence, and every war is sold to the public by professional liars and totally sincere religious maniacs, as a Holy Crusade to save God and Goodness from Satan and Evil.

There's a constant flow of child actors. It's kind of funny to watch the new crew come through. I think, You poor little things. You're going to have to struggle for a long time.

Life is always struggle with eternal forces.

The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just.

If you make a film normally it's all right, the distributors are helpful and cooperative. But if you make a film that's a little stange, a little bizarre, then all the time it's a struggle with them.

Everywhere that the struggle for national freedom has triumphed, once the authorities agreed, there were military coups d'etat that overthrew their leaders. That is the result time and time again.

The struggle goes on. The victory is in the struggle, for me. And I accepted that a long time ago.

The struggle you see in the Republican Party today is the country club Republican versus the bowling alley Republican. Colin Powell brings us back to the country club image. He's an insider. He's a moderate.

Men spend their whole lives showing that they're strong and silent. They fight for independence the way women struggle to connect.

Everybody was in struggle, in the grind trying to make it.

I would not go so far as to say that the French trade unions attached greater importance to the struggle for peace than the others did; but they certainly seemed to take it more to heart.

I was ready to accept the philosophy that the Party is right and that in the coming struggle you could not permit yourself any doubts after the party had made a decision.

Underground literature only began in the '70s, when technical developments made it possible. Before that, we were involved in a game with the censors. That was our struggle.

Some people suggest that the problem is the separation of powers. If you had a parliamentary system, the struggle for power would not result in such complex peace treaties that empower so many different people to pursue so many contradictory aims.

Our duty is to encourage every one in his struggle to live up to his own highest idea, and strive at the same time to make the ideal as near as possible to the Truth.

Without a struggle, there can be no progress.

The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.