Doing what you do well is death. Your duty is to keep trying to do things that you don't do well, in the hope of learning.

I would be far more critical than any reviewer could be of my own work. So I simply don't read them.

I have this fantasy. I'm walking past a bookshop and I click my fingers and all my books go blank. So I can start again and get it right.

Why does the past seem so magical, so fraught, so luminous? At the time it was just, ugh, another boring bloody day. But, to look back on, it's a day full of miracles and light and extraordinary events. Why is this? What process do we apply to the past, to give it this vividness? I don't know.

Percussion is the most adaptable family of instruments. The biggest challenge is to project percussion in a lyrical way.

I got family in the U.K. on my dad's side of the family. My grandfather's brother moved to the U.K. from Jamaica. It's a pretty big family I'll have there.

I am always exhausted; I am always trying to find more time to be with my family, which is why they travel with me so much.

The memoirs of the Grand Duchess Olga are an entertaining record for anyone interested in the imperial family's home life during the last years of Russian autocracy.