Quotes from Sue Perkins

My mum has recorded all my programmes and not watched one. My dad says he finds it embarrassing.

If you fix your sense of self to your job, then you're heading for disaster.

I am an appalling softie. But somehow, somewhere along the line, I've learnt how to hide it.

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.

I sent an ex of mine an enormous oil painting of me as a housewarming gift. It was one of the most elaborate and time-consuming practical jokes I've ever done.

As a child, I was awkward, fidgety, and shy, with a total inability to concentrate, and in that regard, I'm exactly the same as an adult.

I'm a big Hitchcock fan, and I love anything by Almodovar.

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.

'Bleak House' remains a great novel for me, and I love 'David Copperfield.'

I'm very impatient.

Writing a memoir begins a process that doesn't necessarily end with publication. You begin to think about family life and stories and relationships, and those are ongoing.

Being a lesbian is only about the 47th most interesting thing about me.

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.

It's always a treat for me to go to the British Library.

We all belong to a tribe. You might be a religious or a family person - that's your tribe.

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 don't want my life to just be about me.

I'd love to see Kate Bush, full stop.

I have a freelancer's mentality: if I leave the country for more than 24 hours on a non-work trip, I believe I will never be employed again.

My memoir is a story of family and childhood, and everyone has had one of those. Mine is not the definitive version of childhood, but it's a great way to start a conversation.

I can put on a £1,000 item of clothing and make it look a mess.

I don't understand people who travel purely gastronomically, who book a Michelin-starred restaurant three months in advance and suddenly find themselves in Copenhagen or Barcelona with a zeitgeist plate of snail porridge.

I'd have worked with an orchestra, been a chef, or a zoo keeper.

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.