I tend to head for what's amusing because a lot of things aren't happy. But usually you can find a funny side to practically anything.

It's easy to get bogged down in bad news.

A lot of writing about being a mother is not so much writing about the kids themselves. They become placeholders for the shift that happens when you're suddenly in charge of other people.

I believe that I am past my prime. I had reckoned on my prime lasting till I was at least fifty.

The thing is, often press people ask questions that are so personal that even your nearest and dearest wouldn't ask them.

Don't be defeatist, dear, it's very middle class.

I don't think films about elderly people have been made very much. I think of Cocoon and Driving Miss Daisy. But they always seem to be fairly successful, so it's a bit baffling as to why everybody has to be treated as if they were five-years-old.