Quotes from Jane Birkin

When I arrived in France aged 20, I marched against the death penalty, which was an unpopular thing to protest against at the time.

I love Dickens because it makes me chuckle to myself so. He has taken me to another world and out of so many earthly miseries.

I'd rather live on my own than live with a face that looks at me with the wrong eyes.

When I was at school I used to scream in trains, in those concertina things between the carriages. I used to try to be so good that sometimes I couldn't bear it any more.

I have to be careful not to get a paunch - I'm so skinny that if I put any weight anywhere, it'd be there, and I don't like a bulge. I wouldn't mind if it went on my bosom, but it doesn't.

Jacques Doillon wanted me to be in his film, 'La Fille Prodigue,' and there I was, expecting, for some reason, this great bearded man, when a splendid looking red-Indian style man appeared at my door. I said no to his film because I knew that if I said yes, I would run off with him.

I don't much enjoy travelling, but I have always longed to take a slow train to Russia. I'd like to go alone - like writers do - with only a pencil and piece of paper as company. I'd take my sketchbook and note down all the wonderful details of other travellers.

I love the French very much, and I think they know that. I've been adopted here. They treat me as one of their own.

It's usually a jolly good trick to pick up a local tour guide. They can tell you all the anecdotes that make a place interesting. I'm one for rushing off to museums at the crack of dawn, eating fabulous things on terraces for lunch, and enjoying long dinners on balmy evenings.

But who wants an easy life ? It's boring !

My father was a painter, so I was encouraged to take a sketchbook everywhere. Cameras are perishable, but I still have tonnes of sketchbooks from all the trips I've ever been on. It gets you by when you don't know what to give people as a gift; drawings are good souvenirs.

Everything I wear doesnt put me in the league of women. If I were a boy, I could look a lot prettier than a lot of boys I know.

When you start recognising that you're having fun, life can be delightful.

I have never written a book about my life, despite being offered purses of gold. I made 'Boxes' because I wanted to make a sincere depiction of a daughter who has lost her father, or the jealousy one can feel towards a daughter who has become more beautiful than you and whose stepfather starts to take her shopping.

Robert Louis Stevenson... I'm focusing on the late short stories that I was ignorant of. I always thought he was a boys' author, but he's not at all.

Nothing has ever touched on what fun childhood was. Summer holidays were bliss. We made home movies, with real stories in them. My father had such charm and charisma, and made everything so funny.

I never have more than one bag at a time. I think one is already quite enough. Also, I hate changing bags, so I never have the thing of having ten bags. Any bag that's with me will take the same course as I will. It will take the same airplanes and will be squashed in the same way and will be used as a cushion in the airports.

Without my specs on, I think I look really great; then I put them on, and I scream. But at 62, I still think less is better. I use Clarins foundation, but I don't put it everywhere - I hate that covered look - so just on the sides of my nose where the veins have gone bang.

I think it's always good to read local authors or relevant books. In Egypt, I studied hieroglyphics and read everything about the mummies.

When my father died, my mother came back from being Mrs. Birkin to being Judy Campbell. She was a stunning actress. She came out of her shell. She was herself again: this very independent, funny, intellectual lady - and was able to perform again, which was her life before meeting my father squashed it out.

I don't like getting older, but there's nothing I can do. Hitting 60 wasn't great, but I think I was lucky in not being that beautiful; it can be really cruel on people who have been stunning.

I remember being married to John Barry and trying to be the best wife in the world.

People always like things that seem exotic.