“I have no regrets. If you regret things, you’re sort of stepping backwards. I’m a believer in going forwards.”

Many roads to take some to joy some to heart ache

Life is short, and it is here to be lived.

I do think it’s important for young women to know that magazine covers are retouched. People don’t really look like that.

I look like people that walk down the street. I don’t have perfect boobs, I don’t have zero cellulite – of course I don’t – and I’m curvy. If that is something that makes women feel empowered in any way, that’s great.

I don’t have parts of my body that I hate or would like to trade for somebody else’s or wish I could surgically adjust into some fantasy version of what they are.

I am insecure. If you ask me, everybody is.

I still don’t believe this craziness for being skinny, but I eat sensibly and I don’t stuff down chocolate biscuits.

I was the kid who never won the races. I never jumped the highest. I wasn’t on the list of the high-achieving.

I accept my body. I accept how I am and make the best of what I am given.

Mum and dad were very much friends, and up to life. There was no anxiety for anything when I was growing up, they just taught me to be me.

I’m often moved by the circumstances around some of my characters, but I don’t think I’ve actually cried watching myself.

There are moments to indulge and enjoy, but I always know when it’s time to go home and wash my knickers.

Of course I believe in marriage. Commitment to one other person in life is glorious.

Regret isn’t good. Every decision one makes in life is made for a reason or another. Whenever something bad happens, I go, ‘This is happening for a reason’, or, ‘This is going to teach me something’.

I feel very strongly that curves are natural, womanly and real. I shall continue to hope that women are able to believe in themselves for who they are inside, and not feel under such incredible pressure to be unnaturally thin.

If you don’t try at anything, you can’t fail.

I believe in the immortality of the soul because I have within me immortal longings.

When the world says, “Give up,” Hope whispers, “Try it one more time”.You have more potential than you believe you do.

Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.

Be humble, believe in yourself, and have the love of the world in your heart.

It is not goodness to be better than the worst.

It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.

I never thought of losing, but now that it’s happened, the only thing is to do it right. That’s my obligation to all the people who believe in me. We all have to take defeats in life.

People who believe that they are strong-willed and the masters of their destiny can only continue to believe this by becoming specialists in self-deception.