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.

In my third husband I had discovered a blissfully laid-back type who thought it nothing less than hilarious when I misread the map on the way to Wales, so it took us an extra three hours, or when I was sick in a plastic carrier bag during much of the drive back from Devon - a bag that turned out to have a hole in it.

I just have a real problem with people who seek to portray fatness or thinness as moral concepts.

Rachel Cusk's books are like pop-up volumes for grown-ups, the prose springing out of the page to bop you neatly between the eyes with its insights.

Being a monarchist, and fawning over those 'above' you, you must naturally despise those 'below' or on the same socioeconomic level as yourself, because that is how hierarchy worship works.

If you want sex, have an affair. If you want a relationship, buy a dog.

As I get older I think, contrary to modern assumption but in line with the old Lerner and Lowe song, that it would actually benefit both them and society if - to quote Professor Higgins - a woman could be more like a man.