overheard

You know, when you're first famous they don't give you a book. They should. Maybe I should write it. Fame 101: Don't Say Whimsical Things.

Courtney Love, singer and actress, Guardian

It's just silly. If someone in the Spice Girls wants to be a rightwinger, she has no idea that if she lets the right wing get out of control there is no way she could be expressing her sexuality on any level, and that's really frightening.

Love, on Spice Conservatism, ibid

We don't vote. If you vote for Labour there's a lot of hardship to come. If you vote for the Tory [sic] then you're still under-privileged in some way. How many years has the Tory been in power? Eighteen years. Jeez! How many years has there been oppression? It's been 25 in South Aftrica, so that's another 25 years before things become half equal.

Vernie Bennett of Eternal, Guardian

The words swell out of you like speech bubbles in a cartoon. Sometimes, I hear a shrill distant voice and wonder, "Who is that dreadful woman?" It takes a second or two to realise it's me.

Allison Pearson, critic, on appearing on BBC2's Late Review, Telegraph

During my record-company years, [there was] lots of bonking on sofas ... But I never got involved in all that. When Richard Branson tried to throw me in the swimming pool, I simply glared at him and said: "No, Richard. I've been to public school. I've done all that, been there. Don't."

Lisa Anderson, executive producer of the Brits, Independent

I'd like to have made this Dadaist excursion into power-sex because it's one flick that's really gnawed its way into my cerebellum.

Hal Hartley on The Devil in Miss Jones, a porn film, Guardian