Before he died, my dad had three primary cancers over 20 years, and for four of those years, he was having chemo every day. We got used to sitting as a family at the table and him not to be able to taste what we were tasting.
— Sue Perkins
I'm a passionate person; there's a lot going on underneath my carousel of blazers: a cauldron of sensitivity and emotion.
You can say a lot of things about me, but I own my own opinions. They're not for sale.
We all belong to a tribe. You might be a religious or a family person - that's your tribe.
I had an operation on my cornea when I was little, and remember being deeply enamoured with the team who looked after me.
My dad was a keen philatelist and, when he died, he left me an album he'd curated over some 40 years. He'd handpicked every item, saying each one reminded him of me. I opened it to discover the pages were full of beige stamps bearing the image of George V. Take from that what you will.
I ended up in TV because I have no ability to do anything else. I have an agent who tells me where I have to be when.
I don't look great. I'm a bit ramshackle.
It's so hard to do the right thing with a pen and a piece of paper and a set of abstract thoughts.
I am happier with my face since I started wearing glasses at 27, because they punctuate it. They also hide one of my biggest defects, my baggy eyes.
A great conductor is an alchemical force: someone who can absorb the historical weight of a famous melody, the expectations of an audience, and the mercurial brilliance of a host of musicians, and shape them all to his or her interpretative ends.
I usually like 'The Guardian' and its journalistic bent, but sometimes 'The Independent.' And if I'm being totally honest, some weekends I'll have a 'News of the Screws' or a 'Sunday Spurt.' You need high and lowbrow.
I don't really drink, but the one thing I really hanker after is Zubrowka vodka. If it's someone's birthday, I'll pretend I like red wine for about three sips.
I don't have it in my personality to be frightened of things.
I'd really like to see Mary Berry busting out a Pitbull number!
I read a lot when I was at college, but really, only a few of Dickens's books work for me.
I don't think anyone can listen to a Smiths song and not scream your lungs out in recognition of what it's like to feel odd.
I have an almost entirely written correspondence with a few friends of mine who are really busy. We exchange quite long and sometimes quite whimsical, sometimes quite meaningful, sometimes silly letters.
I've hated myself since I knew my own name. But 'Bake Off' has simply confirmed to me what a bottom-feeding halfwit I am.
I'm desperate to be in the same room as Katie Hopkins. There are a few things I'd like to say to her, really calmly. I'd just like to put forward a case for her to integrate the 'her' that she pretends to be on TV with the 'her' she is as a real person.
I always assumed that the reason I've never run a marathon is because I haven't bought a pair of shorts and arrived at the start line.
The great thing about ageing is that your eyesight deteriorates at the same rate as your face. So I can't see how bad things are getting.
If you fix your sense of self to your job, then you're heading for disaster.
I'll go on panel shows looking like I've been dragged through a hedge backwards.
Being a lesbian is only about the 47th most interesting thing about me.
My idea of hell is to sit with a pair of curling tongs or have my hair blow-dried: I fidget like a 12-year-old boy.
With comedy, it's not always a blessing to be beautiful because part of it is self-parody and gurning.
I came to music very young.
I'm a big Hitchcock fan, and I love anything by Almodovar.
In Hebrew, the name Susan means 'graceful lily' - in Khmer, it means 'girl with the bad puns,' and in ancient Aztec, it translates as 'she with the cockerel hair and dirty glasses.'
I wanted to set 'Heading Out' in a real world, a concept I originally struggled with, as I don't have a proper job.
I'd love to see Kate Bush, full stop.
'Bleak House' remains a great novel for me, and I love 'David Copperfield.'
The only time I am not talking is when I am dancing. I look like an electrocuted octopus.
I'm known for being quite gobby, but also, I'm quite old fashioned in the sense that I like writing letters.
My mum has recorded all my programmes and not watched one. My dad says he finds it embarrassing.
To those who say: 'Why pay for a gym when the outdoors is free?' I say this. In nature, there are no medicine balls. You can lie on an outsized gourd doing sit-ups, but in reality, outsized gourds are hard to come by unless you live in a farmers' market.
I have come to understand that my hatred of the gym was based on fear and prejudice, a tribal resistance to science, to improvement. But to ignore my aging physicality and not try and become the strongest and fittest I can be is curmudgeonly at best and wilfully ignorant at worst.
I'm OK with my appearance. I have made my peace with it after a long and frankly exhausting battle.
Music is where I'm still. It's where I'm focused. It's such a joy. I'd like to make it a big part of my life.
I'm not fashionable.
Sometimes I get into the mindset that being heterosexual is a brave new world, because you can conceive, and you work out the rest of it once you're pregnant.
Long hair doesn't look good on me because my hair is fine.
Whatever the critics make of 'Maestro,' I hope they don't call it a reality show.
I was bookish and awkward and wanted a means of expressing the millions of emotions flying around inside me. The piano seemed as good an outlet as any.
I like '24.' But I have to wait until it comes out, then watch it all in 24 hours. You really let yourself go in that one day; you just eat crisps and wander around madly ranting.
It was a privilege to experience life beyond the cliches and to witness the vibrancy, chaos, and multiculturalism of Bengal first hand.
By making the gay character funny and sweet but above all normal, you make a far better, longer lasting statement than you would if you had an entirely gay comedy.
I was an international krumper at one time. I can't talk about it, really, because when you've lived for krump like I have, when you get a bit older and you move away from it, it's hard.
It's always a treat for me to go to the British Library.
