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Smell is so powerful, you know. My grannies would both bake things like shortbreads and cookies. I think whenever I smell those kinds of things it really takes me back to my childhood.

Different people's houses smell like different weird things. God forbid someone should come and nail down what my house smells like. It'd probably be a litter box... sweaty socks... and burnt bacon. That probably is what it smells like.

Onions and bacon cooking up just makes your kitchen smell so good. In fact, one day I'm going to come up with a room deodorizer that smells like bacon and onions. It's a fabulous smell.

Smell is a long-distance sense, a way of stretching time and finding out in advance what lies ahead.

Smell is stimulating. It stirs things up and makes us nostalgic - a wonderful word which literally means 'ache for home' - which serves to inspire new circuits in the brain.

One thing I always make - and I'm sure this is partly to do with memory and yearning and because I've made it ever since my children were born - I make gingerbread every year. And it's partly just the perfume of the spices in the house, makes it smell like winter to me.

I think smells, like sounds, can be so much immediately affecting.

In humans, smell is often viewed as an aesthetic sense, as a sense capable of eliciting enduring thoughts and memories. Smell, however, is the primal sense. It is the sense that affords most organisms the ability to detect food, predators, and mates.

Smells are so powerful and evocative, sometimes stronger than visual cues.