The age thing really bugs me. Do people have more of a right to not like what I say because I'm 19?

My habit would have been to veer towards the dark - to prove I was something edgy or maybe to prove that I was cognisant of the dark side. Now with age and confidence I can say yeah that's true but I am cognisant of the fact that people can do things well. And can be more loving than you expect.

When I was younger my whole sense of self-worth was based on whether or not I was working which was awful. And I had a baby at 20 years old so it wasn't just about me. At around the age of 30 there was a stretch where I wasn't working - certainly not on anything I liked anyway - and I started to do other things.

Maybe it is something to do with age but I have become fonder of poetry than of prose.

There's no way to approach anything in an objective way. We're completely subjective our view of the world is completely controlled by who we are as human beings as men or women by our age our history our profession by the state of the world.

As a precocious teen I dreamed of being Graham Greene. Well as it turned out I never wrote a great novel sadly and I never converted to Catholicism happily but I did do one thing he did. That is in middle age I moved to a seaside town and got into a right barney with the local powers-that-be.

I am firmly of the opinion that women who make a lot of effort to hang onto their looks in middle age (unless they are beauties entertainers or prostitutes) are rather sad as one should surely have something more substantial to recommend one by this time such as kindness or cleverness.

I hate the idea that you shouldn't wear something just because you're a certain age.

You hit a certain age and - especially because of TV - the young cooks coming up say 'You're a sellout because you're doing something other than what you should be doing.' 'Top Chef' is a double-edged sword for me: There's a whole group of people who will not come to the restaurants because they assume I'm not in them anymore all I do is TV.

I am happy being able to play roles with people my age because once you do something really mature there is no turning back.

When I write about a 15-year old I jump I return to the days when I was that age. It's like a time machine. I can remember everything. I can feel the wind. I can smell the air. Very actually. Very vividly.

I never took guitar lessons. I took classical piano lessons from the age of six when we lived in Holland. And when we moved to America it was just the typical thing except I was really good at it so was my brother.

I think you can't really escape any kind of spiritual education as a child whether it's New Age or Judaism or Buddhism or whatever it is. You can't escape it even if you completely disagree with it you still have it as a foundation that you base things off of.

American Idol transcends age gender ethnicity everything.

I love things that age well - things that don't date that stand the test of time and that become living examples of the absolute best.

It's the kind of clothes that mothers and daughters can wear in terms of concept... It's not about age. It's about taste and it's about lifestyle. I believe women of all ages can wear anything.

The reason for the sadness of this modern age and the men who live in it is that it looks for the truth in everything and finds it.