Quotes from Andrew Morton

Tongues wag and stories circulate with electrifying efficiency.

As she once remarked, "Disobedience is my joy.

I always felt so different - I felt I was in the wrong shell.

I come away depleted of everything because they just suck me dry, because I tune in to all their moods and, boy, are there some undercurrents there!

lawyers' offices to sign the immunity agreement, her grandmother, Bernice, had said, "At last I can sleep at night." A few

Inside the system I was treated very differently, as though I was an oddball. I felt I wasn't good enough. Now, thank God, I think it's okay to be different.

Eighth Earl of Spencer

I am normal, it's okay to be me, it's all right

I'm learning to be patient.

It was as though I had been admitted into an underground club that was nursing a secret. A dangerous secret.

The boys have been a loving lifeline for the Princess in her isolated position. "They mean everything to me," she is fond of saying. However, in September this year, when Prince Harry joins his elder brother at Ludgrove preparatory school, Diana will have to face the prospect of an empty nest at Kensington Palace. "She realizes that they are going to develop and expand and that soon a chapter in her own life will be complete," observes James Gilbey.

Ironically, when Meghan did dress like a princess, wearing a £56,000 gown by the London-based Ralph & Russo for her formal engagement portraits, she was criticized for her extravagance. First in line was her half-sister Samantha, who wondered how she could spend so much on a dress when her father Tom Senior was in need of a helping financial hand. Meghan was discovering, as Diana and Kate had before her, that whatever she chose to wear, someone would have a critical opinion.

As the commentator Polly Toynbee wrote: 'Diana the Difficult was a problem the Palace could tackle but St Diana is something the Palace can never contend with… If some day the monarchy finally draws peacefully to a close, Diana's ghostly spirit will have played its part.

what she did during her lifetime but in the meaning of her life, the inspiration she gave to others, particularly women, to search for their own truth.

As Mother Teresa told her during her visit to Rome this year: "To heal other people you have to suffer yourself." Diana nodded vigorously in agreement. While she struggles to find an acceptable equilibrium in her life, she acknowledges the progress she has made. She says: "I've opened up. My life is changing. This is only the beginning.

As a memorial fund in her memory attracts hundreds of millions of pounds, as Elton John's Diana tribute becomes the fastest- and biggest-selling record of all time, as the books, videos, magazines and other memorabilia emerge, Diana has joined the pantheon of the immortals.

Opportunity beckoned. As the Princess admitted: 'I have learned much over the last years. From now on I am going to own myself and be true to myself. I no longer want to live someone else's idea of what and who I should be. I am going to be me.

And it will be like an injection, a replenishment coming into my set-up. I say to myself: 'I am normal, it's okay to be me, it's all right, you're going back to work soon, going to be back in your own home; you go back up there again and try and perform.' It's exhausting.

As historians reflect on her renown and her legacy, they will come to judge Diana, Princess of Wales as one of the most influential figures of this, or any other, age. For as long as there are poets, playwrights and men with hearts to break, tales will be told of the princess who died across the water and returned home to be crowned a queen, the queen of all our hearts. Diana, Princess of Wales. She wrote poetry in our souls. And made us wonder.

life, she had decided that the English were not

She had such hope for the future, such belief that he would love, nurture and protect her from the difficulties that lay ahead.

for all her faults, they knew that at heart she was a loving and loyal sister and daughter.

should be published

In the summer of 1979 another boyfriend, Adam Russell, completed his language degree at Oxford and decided to spend a year travelling. He left unspoken the fact that he hoped the friendship between himself and Diana could be renewed and developed upon his return. When he arrived home a year later it was too late. A friend told him: "You've only got one rival, the Prince of Wales.