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.

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.

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