That kind of creaming off the pretty postcard image of the past, I think, is a road to nowhere.

I want to have the career that is my choice - what interests me, what doesn't. I feel more and more strongly about that.

I would rather give up acting than become world famous, because I think you pay a very high price. Writing and putting new plays out into the world has informed what I do, and I've had a lot more freedom to play really interesting parts.

If someone said I had enough money and I could take six months off, I would run in an instant.

If you can keep something very personal, like a song, like a color, like a story, deep in your heart, then nobody can destroy that. Nobody can destroy your imagination; nobody can destroy your love.

I lived in Scotland a long time, and I became aware of Mogwai really from the beginning. They seemed to be fusing hard music structure and sort of raw sonics. They're just very creative thinkers, musical thinkers.

There's a particular sensitivity required to be an artist, and a certain vulnerability, perhaps, and also, somewhere between, you're in your body a lot, too. It's much more physical than one would imagine because I think it's the body where the imagination lives somehow. I do feel the imagination isn't just in the brain up there.

I saw myself as a writer, a novelist, even though I was living the life of a mother and housewife. Writing was - and is - what I do.