Anonymity would be a fantastic umbrella. I don’t like intrusion.

I’ve been through plenty in my life where I’ve really had to focus on the day ahead… because, as I know, the future is, you know, whatever the future is… Once you’ve stared mortality that...

I had two primary cancers, which was pretty unusual. And when I got the second one, people told me such terrible bad-news stories, they instigated fears that weren’t there in the first place. I do...

I took on cancer like I take on everything – like a mission and a job to accomplish.

I’ve made lots of big decisions in my life that have shocked people.

I seize all opportunities with two hands. Everything that’s happened to me has taught me to live in the moment as much as possible.

Seriously, I wanted to be an artist because I saw that it meant endless possibilities. I came from a badly managed family background, so art was a way of reinventing myself.

I have a massive phobia for schedules and calendars. I need people to tell me where I need to be. I can’t bear to see it in black and white. I think it’s a fear...

I’m good at keeping secrets.

If someone looks genuinely interested and asks me a deeply personal question, I’ll give the answer. I’m too open.

I’m motivated every second by my work; it doesn’t switch off. The pictures I make come from every blink of my lashes.

After I left college, I went to work at the Royal Opera House in London, which became a real catalyst for me because it made me realize that I was interested in cinema and in...

When I had cancer – of the colon first, followed by breast cancer and a mastectomy – my motto used to be ‘Drips by day, Prada by night.’ I felt that I had to grasp...

Daniel Day-Lewis is one of the greatest actors of our age; he’s like Olivier. He’s one of those people who can take you into a place where no one else can take you.

I love life. I think it’s fantastic. Sometimes it deals hard things, and when it deals great things, you have to seize them.

Money scares me, and it always has done. I’ve got a childish concept of money, and I like to keep it that way in the sense that I don’t like to think about it.

I’ve turned into one of those people who go jogging in parks that I used to hate.

In my life, I’ve never really listened to when people start forming opinions on how you should be doing things.

I never thought of having cancer as something that was unfair. I just braced myself and tried to get through it.

I always say, and I truly believe this, that my work is three steps ahead of me. I have an idea for something and I tend to feel like it’s leading me and I’ll follow...

Never trust a hippie. That’s definitely my motto.

I often joke that I straddle psychosis and neurosis, and that being an artist keeps me in the middle, so I can work between the two.

My childhood had its challenges, like everyone’s. It imbued me with certain things and took away others. It made me very determined.

I feel like I’ve lost 10 years of my life to cancer.

I think you only see experiences as defining moments with distance.

I struggle if I have chaos around me, but at the same time, if I don’t have it, I’m uncomfortable. It’s a strange thing: If I don’t have chaos, I create it.

I understand what it is to go through emotional trauma and retreat and go into the world of your imagination. I understand how art and music can be a place of safety in a world...

I wanted to become an artist because it meant endless possibilities. Art was a way of reinventing myself.

A lot of children remember seeing cartoons, ‘Pinocchio’ or ‘Bambi’ or something that breaks their heart. I remember seeing ‘The Blue Angel’ and it breaking my heart. It was the first time I realised there...

I love karaoke. I love maudlin country ballads. In another life, I’d be Loretta Lynn.

Britain can sometimes feel like a very small village, and you’re this, I dunno, scarlet woman they’re all gossiping about.

I went to Goldsmith College of Art in London in the ’80s and there I made sculptures, but the objects had nothing to do with how I was thinking. I was making beautifully sanded wooden...

People in love don’t see gender, colour or religion. Or age. It’s about the other person, the one that you love and who loves you. You don’t think of them in terms of a label....

Sorry, there’s nothing like a screaming baby to make a mother twitch.

I feel lucky to be getting older. The fact that I made it to 30 and then 40 was big enough. So I can’t get too down on getting older; otherwise, it kind of undoes...

I really have learned to live in the moment. I don’t question things too much or try to project into the future. That’s how life should be.

I felt giving birth was the most creative act of all my creative acts – literally creation!

I’m the lightest sleeper. I can hear a pin drop. It’s been worse since I was ill. I think your inner ear is always half open, listening out for the faintest danger sign.

I can be very self-destructive, but quietly.

At school, I always felt the art room was the place where you could sit and talk. It was a place of solace. I wasn’t the best artist at school by a long shot; it...

I feel the art world in New York has a stronger following than Britain. If you go to a New York art district on a Saturday morning, it will be so busy with families and...

I remember as a kid not ever wanting to have friends around to my house because it was, for want of a better description, disheveled.

Having children is exciting. Life puts the past into perspective.

My mum has lived in Australia for 22 years now, and we have a rocky relationship. But at the same time it’s one I want to maintain. I need her to be my mum. The...

I’ve always lived my life fearlessly, and what I want to do with my life, I do.

I almost never cry, and it’s something I don’t like about myself. I sometimes try and make myself cry. Sometimes, when I’m in pain, I say if I could just cry it would make it...

I’m interested in taking raw human emotions and then isolating them without any narrative structure. In order to achieve this, I try to break out of the narrative conventions that you’d see in a typical...

One of the few times I saw my mother cry was when Lennon died, and the other time was when Elvis died.

I find that I put my body in my work when I am at a particularly difficult or joyous point because I want to feel that moment.

When you’re no longer ill, and everyone’s gotten over the fact that you’ve had cancer, that core of steel doesn’t go away, and then I had to find other channels for it.