Despotism isn't nearly as bad as it's cracked up to be.

My theory is that one needs to be loved completely, unconditionally, and unfettered by parental disapproval, if one is to get happily through life which, after all, presents its own hurdles.

If you have any power at all from being popular, then you have a duty to help people out.

If no one saw - it didn't count. It's only when you eat in front of strangers or people that make you feel guilty that food is really fattening.

As I was growing up, it was made clear that the fat me wasn't welcome, that a thin person was expected and awaited, and impatiently so.

Call me an over anxious, middle-class mum, but my eight-and-a-half-year old son looks very much, to me, like he's headed for a life of crime.

Despotism isn't nearly as bad as it's cracked up to be.