Laura Marling

Age is relative. Experience is relative. And I think often intensity is confused with maturity.

I definitely tell things at arm's length but that is conscious. No part of me wants everybody to know what's going on.

I get up, go and get a coffee, and go do the crossword - I'm loyal to one particular paper, the 'Guardian' - and that's my idea of a perfect morning.

My mother was very, very critical of my early efforts. She was, like, 'At your age, the Brontes were doing X, Y, and Z.'

Another thing that freaks me out is time. Time is like a book. You have a beginning, a middle and an end. It's just a cycle.

Jane Austen was an extraordinary woman; to actually be able to survive as a novelist in those days - unmarried - was just unheard of.