The best thing my mum and dad did was to send me to the local youth theatre. I loved that; I felt I'd found the thing I really wanted to do.

My family moved out of London's East End to a tiny village. The school I went to was supposed to be mixed gender, but there were hardly any boys born that year. So, yes, joining a youth theatre was a fun way to meet the opposite sex!

I find the whole ceremony of marriage a bit like going to work. Putting on a lovely dress and make-up, learning lines, someone doing your hair.

I'm a hoarder, but then, when it all gets too much, I turn into a ruthless chucker. I'm very good at clearing out and giving stuff away. But I'm equally skilled at shoving things in a cupboard, shutting the door, and calling that 'cleared up.'

I wrote and produced millions and millions of selling records, so my publishing company alone was worth millions of dollars. I didn't have to work anymore in life because when the rappers started sampling... I'm the most sampled artist in history.

We often say that the biggest job we have is to teach a newly hired employee to fail intelligently... to experiment over and over again and to keep on trying and failing until he learns what will work.

If everything in my career has to be made into an autobiography, then there will be people who might think that I am trying to make a statement. But I don't want to do that.

As an author, you spend a lot of time by yourself in a room making clicky noises. It gets pretty insulated. You realize pretty early on in your career that even if this goes well, you could spend all your life in a room alone. Unless you pick projects that are going to get you out doing things, you're not going to actually live your life.