I tell myself that God gave my children many gifts - spirit beauty intelligence the capacity to make friends and to inspire respect. There was only one gift he held back - length of life.

Love is the attempt to form a friendship inspired by beauty.

My dad had this philosophy that if you tell children they're beautiful and wonderful then they believe it and they will be. So I never thought I was unattractive. But I was never one of the girls at school who had lots of boyfriends.

It is impossible to exaggerate the wide and widening gulf between the American attitude on the Iraq war and the view from our friends across the Atlantic.

I don't return anybody's calls unless it's going to mean extra money for me. And I've completely cut off all relationships with any friends that I had before the show. And I've copped an attitude.

And I tell you having girls has made me a much better man. I have friends who are fathers but they only have boys and they have the same attitude toward women they always had you know? And I don't play that... My girls you mess with them? I will bury you underground.

Nothing. We're all friends and friendly. So when the cameras go down depending on the mood or the nature of the material we're dealing with there's usually a kind of a prevailing light attitude that's floating around.

I've never been out with any of the cast of Coronation Street. We're all very close friends so it's very much a professional attitude.

My attitude to writing is like when you do wallpapering you remember where all the little bits are that don't meet. And then your friends say: It's terrific!

My second husband believed I had such a fickle attitude to friendship that each Friday he would update the list of my 'Top Ten' friends in the manner of a Top Of The Pops chart countdown.