Sue Perkins

I'd like to live permanently in October 1988, when I started college. I had no responsibility and the energy to do whatever I wanted. My optimism wasn't dented by experience or low self-esteem.

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.

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.

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.

Performers only get to do their showing off because the public pay to see them. To deny your audience a photo, whatever the format, seems a little rude to me.

I would have loved to have been science-minded enough to be in the caring profession - either as a doctor or nurse or vet.

I always like to think that I'm accountable for everything I do, but I'll never understand how I did some of the things that I did.

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

Just when my biological clock started ticking, I found out it was going to be virtually impossible. And it was very hard.

You build up coming out to this horrible moment. It's so stressful, there's so much adrenaline, and there's so much primal fear - even though I know my parents to be good people - that they're going to reject you.

Dogs are fur repositories for everything you can't say to humans.

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

I'm always content. I hold much more store in contentment than happiness.

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

Universal health care is, for me, the most sacred part, the most important pillar, of British citizenship.

I have only really been able to ever intuit my sexuality through love.

I always want to have fun and be silly and be childish. I'm very childish. I am at my happiest when I am a child and I am just playing.

Bluster - it fortifies me against the outside world. Take away the words, and I am lost.

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

Because I'm busy, I don't sit down to a lot of big formal meals - unless I've got mates round, in which case I'll cook something.

I have slight attention-span issues, so I will often wander off, and then I will be alerted - in inverted commas - when the smoke alarm goes off. So that's how I work out if a bake is finished.

Before he died, my dad had three primary cancers over 20 years, and for four of those years, he was having chemo every day. We got used to sitting as a family at the table and him not to be able to taste what we were tasting.

I have an almost entirely written correspondence with a few friends of mine who are really busy. We exchange quite long and sometimes quite whimsical, sometimes quite meaningful, sometimes silly letters.

I'm a passionate person; there's a lot going on underneath my carousel of blazers: a cauldron of sensitivity and emotion.

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.

I'm so in love with David Dimbleby.

One day I would want to be an Egyptologist, the next day an ornithologist. I was an exhausting child.

When I was 18, I went to the East Coast of America, got mugged, and came straight home.

As an adult, the obsessive dynamics of self-employment meant it was impossible for me to take a break. What would happen if I disappeared for a week or two? I would be forgotten. Forever. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity would, doubtless, present itself - and I would miss the chance to seize it.

I have a voice inside. A voice that I am forever trying to silence. A voice that calls me in when I want to be out, playing. A voice that is always sad. That is always terrified. That always wants to sit in the darkened room, away from noise and movement and colour - away from any experience that could prove to be challenging.

I'd never been one for leaving the comforts of home. That person wasn't me; I didn't spend my formative years youth-hostelling round Rwanda or climbing Everest in a tie-dye playsuit to raise awareness of something or other.

I love watching birds of prey and stags.

For me, a great meal is a collision of company, environment, ambient temperature, the waiters, where you are emotionally.

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 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.

Food attracts a kind of nerdishness like any other sort of passion, and 'Cooks' Questions' is for those people who want to find out more.

You can love food without being a cook. Equally, you can love food and be a very good cook.

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

I've learnt how to develop routines. To play with each bit. To enjoy expanding on it. To get used to the stage being mine.

I'm very impatient.

I've always thrown myself into love in a rather carefree way, and the net result is that you do get hurt. But I wouldn't take away any of the experiences of my life.

Parents care deeply.

I made 'Heading Out' with a lot of love and surrounded myself with brilliant people who challenged me to do my best and also gave a great deal of love and support back. As a result, the experience was blissful.

I make no bones about the fact that I'm over 40.

I'm not very good when I'm given scripts.

I'm a good cook, but I can't bake.

When it started, 'Bake Off' wasn't a big hit. Respect to the people who said, 'We'll keep commissioning this and give it a chance.'

Let's face it: I'm not a looker. I'm a scruff. But I have embraced my scruffiness. We're happy together.

People have tried to glam me up over the years, but it just doesn't work.

I was an international krumper at one time. I can't talk about it, really, because when you've lived for krump like I have, when you get a bit older and you move away from it, it's hard.