Jane Birkin

I know what it's like to have someone coming home who looks at you not in the way they used to in the old days, and I've seen my own face contorted with sadness and rage in the mirror.

I use Elizabeth Arden Eight Hour Cream, £12, on my lips, and my arms if they're sunburned. I'm past caring that sunbathing is dangerous."

I have to be careful not to get a paunch - I'm so skinny that if I put any weight anywhere, it'd be there, and I don't like a bulge. I wouldn't mind if it went on my bosom, but it doesn't.

One of the things I've discovered, thanks to the Japanese, is that you should enjoy yourself. In the old days, I used to think: 'Oh, never be satisfied, never admit to being happy.' But there's no curse in being happy.

I only like boutiques.

I can't be the only person in the world to have three different husbands, and yet those relationships are never talked about.

I love the French very much, and I think they know that. I've been adopted here. They treat me as one of their own.

My first husband, John Barry, was a composer. I couldn't believe that this sophisticated, talented genius chose me and not any of the other girls. I was so flattered, so excited, so in love with him. Of course, my parents were horrified, as he'd been married once and had a daughter with the au pair girl.

If you fall in love with a country and its people, that makes any country warm to you.

I love Dickens because it makes me chuckle to myself so. He has taken me to another world and out of so many earthly miseries.

He painted me when I was young because he was in love with me, but now that he has loved me he doesn't paint me anymore.

I don't like getting older, but there's nothing I can do. Hitting 60 wasn't great, but I think I was lucky in not being that beautiful; it can be really cruel on people who have been stunning.