I’d drink less alcohol in the 90s.

I’d have told a racist cabbie to go fuck himself, but I was scared about being chucked out on the street at 2am.

Nothing at all.

The public mistakes I’ve made. Most recently, I tried to light an e-cigarette on an aeroplane and was told to put it out. I completely forgot I was on a plane. I’d had, like, three drinks, but it only takes three. I stopped as soon as I got off and I got straight back into my programme, because that’s what I do.

I would love to have a good memory. I’m at an age when remembering something right away is as good as an orgasm.

Seeing the future die, from Bobby Kennedy to dear friends.

Sometimes when I’m on a plane, as I often am, the weather is rough and we’re worried about going down. I think: If I hold the hand of the person next to me, I’ll be holding everyone’s hand. Like my dear friend, the late Wilma Mankiller, principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, I want to know: I’m going to the other side of the mountain.

I’ve had cancer three times, but never felt close to death except when I walked between parked cars on my street and a car sped past my nose.

In my 30s, I was staring at a pair of expensive boots in a shop window when the photographer Gordon Parks came up behind me. He instantly understood, because he grew up even poorer than me; he made me buy them on my credit card.

Dying just a millisecond before I was about to say something I really wanted the people I love to hear.