Marina Warner

The vocabulary of pleasure depends on the imagery of pain.

When I was young, I did actually model and was much photographed by famous photographers. But I was always a bookworm.

One of the achievements of our generation of feminists was to emancipate women from the division between being interested in clothes and appearance, and being serious and ambitious. I am of the first generation that could go to Biba, wear miniskirts and get a degree.

The tripartite structure - so you remember the third brother, second brother, first brother, or the first dervish, second dervish, and third dervish. This is very like embroidering a cloth, as you have to know where you are with the knots.

I was brought up a Catholic and I was quite fervent, because I was sent to a convent school.

I shop online because I don't like to try things on in front of an alien mirror.

The French Revolution printed money because they didnt have any so they just printed it and this was a revolutionary step which of course we are still reaping the huge consequences of today. It struck me that this was beginning to happen...there had been scandals where shares had been printed.

I avoid looking in the mirror.

If you want to learn about a culture, you look at what buildings the people lived in but you also want to know about their cosmos.