Born: July 31, 1965 in Yate, Gloucestershire, England, UK

Married to: Neil Murray (26 December 2001 – present) (2 children)
Jorge Arantes (16 October 1992 – 30 November 1993) (divorced) (1 child)

Why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realized, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so Rock bottom became a solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you’ve lived so cautiously, that you might as well not have lived at all.

[At the premiere at the last Harry Potter movie (2011)] Hogwarts will always be there to welcome you home.

[on making a $1.68-million donation for the campaign against the Scottish Independence movement] The more I listen to the ‘yes’ campaign, the more I worry about its minimization and even denial of risks. This separation will not be quick and clean. It will take microsurgery to disentangle three centuries of close interdependence. I just hope with all my heart that we never have cause to look back and feel we made a historically bad mistake.