I'm still angry at so much - class, gender, society, the way we are constantly mentally coerced into behaving a certain way without us even knowing it. I feel so oppressed by the weight of it all that I just want to blow a hole in it all.
I never thought of myself as a strong person until I wrote my first book, and people started to say, 'You're a survivor. You're such a strong person.' It never ever occurred to me.
If I didn't live in London, I would live in Glasgow. I love the colour of the brick and the black ironwork. I think it's got such atmosphere and is extraordinary. I met great people there.
Punk inspired me.
Women are constantly taught to think about what other people are thinking, from those 'Jackie' magazine quizzes - 'What's he thinking?' - to being a grown adult.
I was brought up to be uncompromisingly bloody-minded by my mother. She equipped me, without knowing it, to be someone who is creative rather than an entertainer. Not many girls are brought up like that, to never rely on a man. To not be a housewife, not be a mother.
I still live very much by punk ethics, but in a more grown up way.
I absolutely wasn't going to write a book if it was just going to be about punk.
I'm the angriest and most empathetic person you'll ever meet.
I don't believe in an afterlife. You live on in the people you influence during your lifetime.
I do read a lot of autobiographies and biographies but from people who are not in my field - older women, older artists, Miles Davis.
I didn't pursue happiness at all. I've never pursued it. I wasn't brought up to pursue it.
Punk was such an exciting time because there were no rules. You could go and knock on Sun Ra's door - and he was in the phonebook, under Ra!
I always felt very free about experimenting with clothes. I was into clothes in a big way from a young age. Not expensive but fun and experimental.
I read a lot when I was young. All the obvious, all the greats, from 'Le Grand Meaulnes,' 'To Kill a Mockingbird,' 'Fear and Loathing,' 'Catcher in the Rye,' 'The Bell Jar,' 'The Female Eunuch,' 'Valley of the Dolls,' 'The Feminine Mystique,' Tom Wolfe. Then, film took over for me. Film was so exciting in the '70s.
I get the same lurching thrill now when I'm about to sit down to an egg mayonnaise sandwich and a packet of plain crisps as I used to get when I fancied someone.
I've never had any interest in reading the real-life stories of criminals. I don't want to get inside their heads.
I've had two great loves: my mother and my daughter.
If my 18-year-old daughter asked me whether she should lead a truth-hunting, artistic, uncompromising life as I have done, I'd say no, don't do it. It's a difficult and lonely path for a woman.
If you've written something that moves you and frightens you, you just can't take it back.
