People - and I include myself - get fat because they choose pleasure over self-denial.

A wedding is a funeral which masquerades as a feast. And the greater the pageantry, the deeper the savagery.

The freedom that women were supposed to have found in the Sixties largely boiled down to easy contraception and abortion; things to make life easier for men, in fact.

I won't be going to any New Year's Eve parties because I think they're naff. No one over the age of 15 should bother going to parties.

Graham Greene famously said that all writers need a chip of ice in their heart; Cusk can come across as the most beautiful ice palace of stalactites and stalagmites, and some people find her company, albeit by proxy, about as inviting as a long weekend in a walk-in frigidaire.

Having 'best friends' is - at least for me - as outdated and small-minded a concept as the idea of 'Sunday best clothes.'

To believe that one, or even three, mates can supply all the things one needs from one's friends is as stupid as believing married couples must do everything together.