If my dinner was really hot, I'd put my fork up to my eye and look at my little brother through the steam coming off the food. He'd say: 'Mum, he's looking at me through his fork again.' It sent him insane.

When I was 14, I had a job in a cake shop. I got caught by the boss, lying down eating cake, and was sacked on my first day.

When you're a kid, and someone's an artist, you think of Leonardo da Vinci. You don't think that's a job; you just think of a man with a beard, painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

I hated school, so when I got to this place with other people who could draw and were interested in wearing makeup, it was amazing.

And what I love about music and art in general is that you can take something so negative or positive - any emotion, no matter how sad or happy - and turn it into art.

I believe, from reading biographies, that the great musicians have also been great cooks: Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Max Roach. I think I've worked out why this is - unsociable hours, plus general creativity.

People can die of mere imagination.

Mitch Glazer and I went to high school together, and his mother was my English teacher for two years. She was my favorite teacher, and I followed Mitch's career as a journalist, so we've kind of kept in touch over the years.