It occurred to me that at one point it was like I had two diseases – one was Alzheimer's and the other was knowing I had Alzheimer's. There were times when I thought I'd have been much happier not knowing, just accepting that I'd lost brain cells and one day they'd probably grow back or whatever. It is better to know, though, and better for it to be known, because it has got people talking, which I rather think was what I had in mind.

Life’s too short to take offence.

We are not here for long – try not to take everything too seriously.

Before I was diagnosed with esophageal cancer a year and a half ago, I rather jauntily told the readers of my memoirs that when faced with extinction I wanted to be fully conscious and awake, in order to “do” death in the active and not the passive sense. And I do, still, try to nurture that little flame of curiosity and defiance: willing to play out the string to the end and wishing to be spared nothing that properly belongs to a life span. However, one thing that grave illness does is to make you examine familiar principles and seemingly reliable sayings. And there’s one that I find I am not saying with quite the same conviction as I once used to: In particular, I have slightly stopped issuing the announcement that “Whatever doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.”

Losing my mind.

Comparing themselves to other people.

I cry all the time. Films can tip me over. Especially Pixar ones. I alarmed my kids when we went to see Coco – I was a mess. I cried at the Elton John gig at Glastonbury.

Curious, suggestible, silly.

Bar and buffet at Top Ten Bingo in Greenford. A lot of the old people were quite bigoted.

The perimenopause.