Look at Kate Bush, Patti Smith, Yoko Ono - three really private people, but when they're on stage or when they're singing, they let go like no one else.
I think sometimes men find it easier to be a carer than an accessory. I mean, most women I know in bands are pretty lonely. Guys don't want to travel around with you. I know loads of women who do it, but guys don't do it. They're not brought up for it.
The more blows you have in life, the better, because it means you're challenging yourself.
Doctors didn't know if I would survive. The cancer was too big to operate on, so they blitzed it with chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
I've had to fight for everything.
When you've fought and fought to keep positive and to keep creative even though there was not a space to be creative, well, you show me any human who is not angry after 60 years of that.
Female rage is not often acknowledged - never mind written about - so one of the questions I'm asking is, 'Are you allowed to be this angry as you grow older as a woman?' But I'm also trying to trace where my anger came from. Who made me the person that is still so raw and angry? I think that it's empowering to ask that question.
I want to say to younger women especially that it's OK to be an outsider. It's OK to admit to your rage. You're not the only person walking down the street feeling angry inside.
I have a daughter. I have my imagination. I have friends. I, in no way, am going to louse that up with some idiot man, frankly. They drag you down - I'm talking about my generation of men.
Girl bands still do just copy the way men move onstage. To me, that is so backwards, so un-radical.
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 think young men and boys are taught to fail. It's nothing to them; they do sport, they fall over, they shout, 'I'm all right,' and carry on. But with girls, they're so appallingly embarrassed to fail, it's like it's considered unfeminine.
I've burned all my bridges for the sake of getting as near as I can to the truth. And after years of searching for the truth, you find that that's all you can bear. The truth and nothing but the truth.
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 spend any more of it conforming to other people's rules and ideals?
I think, often, people who do something new creatively don't benefit financially from it - it's the people who come after and make them palatable that make money.
With the second book, I didn't have an ideal reader in mind, as it developed quite out of my control, this detective novel of why am I so full of anger, why did I pick up a guitar when I was poor and uneducated.
I haven't found music comforting since the '80s, but it doesn't mean it's not good - it just doesn't work for me. It's shocking to me because music was my religion from the age of 11, and it's like I don't believe in my god any more.
My favourite guitar was - I can't remember if it was '50s or '60s - a pale wood Telecaster, and it made me a better player. It was beautiful, so easy to play.
There are more and more of us women out there who won't be pushed around and will give back a lot more than was bargained for. You have to mean it, though.
There's a fine line between brave and mad. But whatever I do, I go for it.
