Viv Albertine

“At last there is an unknown element back in my life. This is how it used to be. This is how I used to do things before the eighties and jobs and money and careers and Thatcher and marriage a...”

“I can't imagine what a happy home is like: parents cuddling and laughing, music playing, books on the shelves, discussions round the table? We don’t have any of that, but if Mum’s happy, I’m...”

“I secretly do a pregnancy test every day. It’s always negative. I just want to be sure, seeing as this is the last try. I’m going to do a pregnancy test every single day until my period come...”

“I'm glad I didn't know how my life was going to turn out when I was that child lying in bed staring at the curtains. I'd have been terrified of the good things that happened just as much as...”

“I work hard, I never miss a lecture. I try and overachieve, like all mature students. People given a second chance know the value of their reprieve.”

“I'd like to be with someone kind who can hold a conversation and is in my age group. If that's too much to ask, I'll do without.”

“I can always go back to Jane Austen. 'Mansfield Park' is full of wise aphorisms and relevant observations of people.”

“I can't stand these autobiographies that start with, you know, 'I was born in Acton, and I went to such and such a school.' They just bore me.”

“I do read a lot of autobiographies and biographies but from people who are not in my field - older women, older artists, Miles Davis.”

“One of my faults is a big mouth. I tend to say the wrong thing without meaning to.”

“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 Eunu...”

“I could be completely mad and sound like David Icke, but I just find people with blue eyes colder, less passionate, and more calculated people.”

“The older I get, the more the lying, the losing touch with your true thoughts and feelings, and the compromises required to fit in seem not worth the effort. It's my one go on Earth; why spe...”

“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.”

“Most female artists - to do what you have to do and to be as honest as you have to be, to be as selfish as you have to be, as tunnel-visioned as you have to be to make art, not entertainment...”

“The truth is the only thing that will move society forwards.”

“It's the people who transcend their backgrounds who are interesting to me. I have got a bit of inverted snobbery.”

“It's all very well for the Kinks and Damon Albarn to sing those songs and sneer at Mr. Nine to Five, but again, they're white men, so they didn't have it very hard.”

“I usually write at my kitchen table, nothing exotic. I don't need any equipment. I don't have to organise anyone else to rehearse, and when I do a reading, lots of women and girls come, wher...”