I have not lost an awful lot in my life, but the defeats have taught me more than the victories.

At a certain point in my personal life, I went through a divorce and lost some people close to me.

Obviously, I got very lucky that even though I lost my mother, I lost her later in life, but it's still had a profound effect on me.

When the Beatles were on 'Ed Sullivan,' life went from black and white to color like in 'The Wizard of Oz' - and the irony I'm in the band Toto is not lost on me.

It was failing part of my Ph.D. that led me into novel-writing. By then I was 29, had remarried and had a second baby. It struck me that I'd lost my path in life and I felt frustrated. That's when I started to write.

Out all of these zillions of letters, one of the first ones that came was, as it turned out from Johnny Carson within the last five or six weeks of his life. I had worked with him. He lost a son who had worked for me.

I have lost and put on big batches of weight in my life many, many times. But what concerns me is the idea of being an obese old woman, because I don't like the idea of being physically incapable in someone else's hands.

Playing rugby has been my whole life and for me, keeping fit was part of my job. But when I gave up my career, I was determined to keep motivated, and that isn't always easy when you have lost the competitive edge to it.

I have never used a fairness cream in my life. I don't think being fair is in any way superior to any other colour. And when I started working, I found that being fair has actually backfired for me. I have lost a few films because I'm too fair.

My Dad, a small-town lawyer, was also named Paul. Until we lost him when I was 16, he was a gentle presence in my life. I like to think he'd be proud of me and my sister and brothers, because I'm sure proud of him and of where I come from, Janesville, Wisconsin.

Nobody ever texts me, because they know what I'm like. I'm a constant frustration to my children because I never switch my mobile phone on. I only use it when I need to make a call or when I'm stuck somewhere or lost, then I switch it off again. I've never texted anyone in my life, and I'm not sure I even know how to.

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