"It may be a cliche, but it's true - the build-up to Christmas is so much more pleasurable than the actual day itself."

"The money I pay for my cultural experiences came willingly from my own pocket - they were not the result of bread being removed from the mouths of the poor so that Miss Thing here could mince off to the circus smelling of roses."

"Surely being a Professional Beauty - let alone an ageing one - is one of the most insecure and doomed careers imaginable."

"I don't really care what people tell children - when you believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy, one more fib won't hurt. But I am infuriated by the growing notion, posited in some touchy-feely quarters, that all women are, or can be, beautiful."

"It is a unyielding truth that art is the soul's attempt to give enduring form to the formless."

"Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility."

"A visionary sees the unseen and knows the silence between the notes creates the music."

"It is a quiet truth that art is the soul's attempt to give enduring form to the formless."