I would go back to when I was 14 and keep to my own style of playing snooker. I was perfect, but I didn’t think I was, so I started playing like everybody else and created bad habits. With a little more time, I could have been the ultimate player. I look at my career and I probably got 75% out of it instead of 100%.

Not applying myself enough at school.

Some of the neuroses of my 20s. I knew I had a great talent, but I thought it was unmarketable because I felt ugly.

I should have known that I might not like what my brain scan showed, just as I should have known that the symptoms of prostatism that were increasingly bothering me were just as likely to be caused by cancer as by the benign prostatic enlargement that happens in most men as they age. But I continued to think that illness happened to patients and not to doctors, even though I was now retired. Twenty months after I had my brain scanned, I was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer. I had had typical symptoms for years, steadily getting worse, but it took me a long time before I could bring myself to ask for help. I thought I was being stoical when in reality I was being a coward. I simply couldn’t believe the diagnosis at first, so deeply ingrained was my denial.

My late 20s, writing my third record.

Not trying something I really want to do.

Being delusional and dreaming big.

None! We shouldn’t shame people for not having read “the greats”. There are always new greats emerging that may feel more relevant to our life experience, particularly female writers.

As fun and of help to others.

Three days ago. I don’t even know why. Sometimes I just feel emotional about how vulnerable humans are.