“'Stress' was the catch-all every pamper-pedlar I spoke to used to explain why healthy women feel the need to be regularly patted, petted and preened into a state of babyish beatification.”
Women“Most women are wise to the fact that lots of men love a cat-fight, and thus go out of their way not to give them one.”
Women“'Stress' was the catch-all every pamper-pedlar I spoke to used to explain why healthy women feel the need to be regularly patted, petted and preened into a state of babyish beatification.”
Women“Big women do themselves a disservice when they attempt to become the Righteous Fat (the Righteous Thin are bad enough, all that running around and sweating, somehow believing it means anything).”
Women“The money I pay for my cultural experiences came willingly from my own pocket - they were not the result of bread being removed from the mouths of the poor so that Miss Thing here could mince off to the circus smelling of roses.”
Money“Show me a frigid women and, nine times out of ten, I'll show you a little man.”
Women“I've never been nostalgic, personally or politically - if the past was so great, how come it's history?”
History“As a precocious teen I dreamed of being Graham Greene. Well, as it turned out, I never wrote a great novel, sadly, and I never converted to Catholicism, happily, but I did do one thing he did. That is, in middle age I moved to a seaside town and got into a right barney with the local powers-that-be.”
Age“One Christmas build-up tradition, however, has totally bypassed me - that of going up to town and 'doing a show.'”
Christmas“These women whose antics we smirk at good-naturedly in the pap-traps put themselves out there at least partly on their beauty they are in showbiz, and showing what they've got is part of their business as much as it is for male show-ponies from the Chippendales to George Clooney.”
Beauty“We are used to female writers who use their private lives as unmitigated material being somewhat hormonal this somehow 'excuses' what might be seen as a highly unfeminine ability to turn their personal upsets into money.”
Money“When did women whose looks are not their living start conducting themselves like the simpering inmates of an Ottoman empire seraglio?”
Women“Tears are sometimes an inappropriate response to death. When a life has been lived completely honestly, completely successfully, or just completely, the correct response to death's perfect punctuation mark is a smile.”
Death“It may be a cliche, but it's true - the build-up to Christmas is so much more pleasurable than the actual day itself.”
Christmas“Being a monarchist - saying that one small group is born more worthy of respect than another - is just as warped and strange as being a racist.”
Respect“There's something brave and touching about game girls of all ages keeping themselves smart in hard times - one thinks of those wonderful women during World War II drawing stocking seams in eyebrow pencil up the back of legs stained with gravy browning because nylons were so hard to get hold of.”
War“My dad didn't drive - the only dad I knew who didn't.”
Dad“Shame, like beauty, is often in the eye of the beholder.”
Beauty“My second husband believed I had such a fickle attitude to friendship that each Friday he would update the list of my 'Top Ten' friends in the manner of a Top Of The Pops chart countdown.”
Attitude“The truth of the matter is, beauty is a specific thing, rare and fleeting. Some of us have it in our teens, 20s and 30s and then lose it most of us have it not at all. And that's perfectly okay. But lying to yourself that you have it when you don't seems to me simple-minded at best and psychotic at worst.”
Beauty“Make no mistake, most women are well aware that they've never had it so good when they enter a spa or salon, it is purely a hair/nails thing, a prelude to an evening of guilt-free fun.”
Women“It's received wisdom that the English are uniquely child-unfriendly.”
Wisdom