Bridget [Jones] was always, at heart, about the gap between how you feel you're expected to be and how you actually are and that gap has only widened. Young people now are entering an uncharted sea, where there's huge pressure to judge yourself on how many Likes or Followers you get on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, rather than the on important things like being kind, honest, resilient, funny and a good friend.

..we were always taught, instead of waiting to be swept off our feet, to 'expect little, forgive much'.

I was writing an earnest novel about cruises in the Caribbean and I just started writing 'Bridget Jones' to get some money, to finance this earnest work, and then I chucked it out.

I'd been working on the [Bridget Jones's Baby: The Diaries material] for years, first, in the Independent newspaper columns and then in the various versions of the movie scripts.

Can officially confirm that the way to a man's heart these days is not through beauty, food, sex, or alluringness of character, but merely the ability to seem not very interested in him.

For me, writing Bridget's [Jones] stories is an instinctive, organic thing, which tends to happen more by accident than design.

I certainly think I'll end up writing about America in some form. I've taken plenty of notes. I like America very much.