Mary Portas: ‘I’m certainly on my terms now’

‘Angel just talked to me and I love the character. What she did was so clever, and I loved it, she created that life. She worked herself into it, it was a path that she opened up by being, and it was a path that she wanted. So she just opened it up herself, created her success through her writing and ended up very wealthy.’

‘I discovered Jane Jacobs and she really just opened my eyes up to what is a fundamental truth, that the way we live and where we live, our cities, our high streets. It’s not about what they sell. It’s not about commerce. It’s about the social infrastructure and safety that they give to our well-being.’

‘Reading Deborah’s [story], and how she decided to leave a marriage. I had these visions of her struggling up the hill in the rain in North London to this flat that she had, and her change in life as a woman in her 50s. How she had to, you know, bring her daughter with her, her identity as a woman. Now, as a single woman, it just resonated, but she takes these moments that are just so exquisitely described, I can’t do her justice, other than to say, I think she’s a magnificent writer.’

‘Mary Oliver, for me, her connection to the earth is just phenomenal […] Her poetry takes me there when I’m not there. And it’s not done in a whimsical poetical [way], it’s raw. It’s really raw.’

‘I just had this realisation that you know, I’ve got the world so wrong on so many levels. And it’s a pocketbook, which I’ve often given to people. Even when I’m out filming […] Because if ever I feel I’m going to that place of anxiety or anger or annoyance or disappointment, I’ll just flip it over. There’s always some little guidance in there. Some beautiful spiritual guidance, that is a truth that gets you back on that path.’