A car accident in Italy in 1990. Four people got killed. I was lucky, I got thrown out.

How many times I could have died before now, and in how many different ways. And yet I came close only once: a speeding sedan ran a red light, hit three other vehicles, and jack-knifed into my rear wheel split second after I’d stepped out of my parked car. A bystander described the scene to me later. “You were a millimetre away from losing your legs,” he said.

Swimming off the north Cornish coast eight years ago. I remember thinking, “Why did they teach you how to inflate your pyjamas in life-saving classes at school, when they could have just told you what to do in a riptide?”

On the interstate. Anyone who has driven in the United States will know that you are always very close to death – it is like the wild west on the freeways.

I would like the poem Cherish by Raymond Carver. It was read by my dad at my wedding, and is my absolute favourite.

Dawn French, because I am sitting next to her and she says if I don’t say her, she will hurt me.

A cellist, inspired by my mum and dad’s friendship with Jacqueline du Pré, and seeing a documentary about her.

Listening to the last 10 minutes of the podcast S-Town. It is one of my favourite reminders of what life is truly all about.

Any writer who thinks I’ve ruined their work in performance.

In my childhood, when I didn’t think about whether it was happy. It just was.