OVERHEARD

I may just be a mad artist who sells dead sheep for vast amounts of money, but the critics have got it wrong.

Damien Hirst, artist, on the media reaction to Natural Born Killers, Guardian

People sneered that my audience was 10- or 12-year-olds, but that's served me well 'cause all those little kids are now in Blur, editors of magazines, directors.

Adam Ant, pop singer, on finding himself back in fashion, Time Out

There is a certain amount of unacknowledged resentment among, to put it bluntly, white native British writers, on the ground that the additional tinge of exoticism when it comes to the Booker Prize does a writer no harm at all.

Pat Barker, novelist, on her doubts about the Booker, New Yorker