Exercise is the yuppie version of bulimia.

For anyone worn down, The Impossible Will Take a Little While is a bracing double cappuccino.

Of all the nasty outcomes predicted for women's liberation... none was more alarming, from a feminist point of view, than the suggestion that women would eventually become just like men.

Jesus: a wine-guzzling vagrant and precocious socialist.

In economics, we borrowed from the Bourbons; in foreign policy, we drew on themes fashioned by the nomad warriors of the Eurasian steppes. In spiritual matters, we emulated the braying intolerance of our archenemies, the Shite fundamentalists.

Roman Catholicism: a hundred million people bowing down before a flesh-hating, elderly celibate.

Like many other women, I could not understand why every man who changed a diaper has felt impelled, in recent years, to write a book about it.