But I don't have a very good track record with royalty. My dress fell off in front of Prince Charles at the Prince's Trust, so I'm just living up to my reputation.

For me, having a child is a really great responsibility because you've got something there that is depending on you for information and love until a certain age when it goes to school.

I had friends but I was spending a great deal of my time alone and for me that was vital because there's an awful lot you learn about yourself when you're alone.

I think probably the only thing that is around in these songs is that I was really lonely when I wrote a lot of them. But it was really by my own choosing because I was devoting myself to songwriting and dancing and I wasn't really going out and seeing people.

Clothes are such a strong part of who a human being is.

What I've tended to do is to use my own experiences to get into someone else's mind, like in Wuthering Heights.

It's not important to me that people understand me.

For the last 12 years, I've felt really privileged to be living such a normal life. It's so a part of who I am.

I've read a couple of things that I was sort of close to having a nervous breakdown. But I don't think I was. I was very, very tired. It was a really difficult time.

I think quotes are very dangerous things.

My first Top of the Pops I didn't want to do. I was terrified. I'd never done television before. Seeing the video afterwards was like watching myself die.

But I don't have a very good track record with royalty. My dress fell off in front of Prince Charles at the Prince's Trust, so I'm just living up to my reputation.

Albums are like diaries. You go through phases, technically and emotionally, and they reflect the state that you're in at the time.

As we become this one global culture, in some ways it's things like the weather and nature that still hold our culture as unique to where we are.

Gene Wilder is so funny.

I am just trying to be a good, protective mother. I want to give Bertie as normal a childhood as possible while preserving his privacy.

I could find faults with all my albums because that's just a part of being an artist - it's hard being a human being, isn't it?

I definitely don't think of myself as being an influence.

I didn't really feel that there were any filler tracks on 'The Red Shoes,' but if I were to do that album now, I wouldn't make it so long.

I do have the odd dream where I'm on stage and I've completely forgotten what I'm meant to be performing - so they are more nightmares than dreams.

I don't aim for perfection. But I do want to try and come up with something interesting.

I don't know about hiding away, but I really only like to present myself when I'm working on something - it's more my work I like to present to the world rather than myself.

I don't listen to my old stuff very often at all.

I don't read newspapers, and I've said I don't watch the news. I love books, but I don't read much. What I do is I get people to read to me, and I put the stories in my head.

I don't really see myself as a celebrity, but more as a sort of mitre.

I guess what all artists want is for their work to touch someone or for it to be thought provoking.

I have a little boy, and I wanted to spend a lot of time with him.

I have to say I find it totally astounding that my albums do as well as they do. It's quite extraordinary, and it's actually very touching for me for the albums to be received with such warmth.

I hear odd tracks from my albums every now and again on the radio, or maybe a friend plays me something.

I listen to very little music, particularly contemporary. If I listen to it, it's going to be my own music, some arrangement or something. I spend so much time listening that the way I relax is by watching things, a comedy; that's my way to wind down.

I really love Hitchcock; I think he was a complete genius, to me one of the best directors. Such a sense of how to put things together.

I suppose I do think I go out of my way to be a very normal person, and I just find it frustrating that people think that I'm some kind of weirdo reclusive that never comes out into the world.

I think I was just lucky to be brought up in a very musical family. My two older brothers were, and still are, very musical and very creative, and music was a big part of my life from a very young age, so it is quite natural for me to become involved in music in the way that I did.

I think it's almost a law of nature that there are only certain things that hit an emotive space, and that's what was always special for me about music: it made me feel something.

I think it's important that things are flawed.

I think snow is so evocative and has such a powerful atmosphere.

I think that there's always room for humour in music. It's something that always takes itself so seriously, which I think is a bit of a shame.

I think we all feel geeky at times, don't we? Isn't that all a part of the wonderful tapestry of life?

I used to enjoy bad television, like really bad quiz programmes or sitcoms.

I want to be in a position where I can function as a human being.

I was aware of a lot of my friends being into things I wasn't into. Like sarcasm. It had never been a part of my family - they still don't use sarcasm.

I work in a very contained environment, usually.

I'll always be tough on myself.

I'm a very strong person, and I think that's why, actually, I find it really infuriating when I read, 'She had a nervous breakdown' or 'She's not very mentally stable, just a weak, frail little creature.'

I'm not sure there are a lot of things I'd want a manager for. I suppose I feel that at least the decisions I make are coming from me, and I'm not put into a situation that I wouldn't want to be in.

I'm the shyest megalomaniac you're ever likely to meet.

If I could make albums quicker, I'd be on a roll wouldn't I? Everything just seems to take so much time. I don't know why. Time... evaporates.

If you believe in what you do and you really want to be in music, just stick at it. It's always a learning process. Enjoy it because I think making music is a privilege, really. In an ideal world, it should also always be fun. As much as possible, make it fun.

In your teens, you get the physical puberty, and between 28 and 32, mental puberty. It does make you feel differently.