If your self-esteem really does depend on how you look you're always going to be insecure. There's no way you can get around it because you are going to age. Even if you get that perfect body you're going to get older and older and older. You can't avid it. So you have to somehow, at some point, take control and sift the focus and decide who you are, what you can contribute to the world, what you do and say, is so much more important than how you look.

I'm living by example by continuing on with my career and having a full, rich life, and I am incidentally gay.

I could tell by his expression that once he got over his anger at me for keeping this secret from him, there was nothing left to talk about. He wasn't confused. He didn't need questions answered. He didn't ask why or how or with whom or whether I thought maybe it might just be a phase. He didn't ask who knew and who didn't know or whether I thought it might ruin my career. I was his sister and he didn't care whether I was straight or gay; it simply didn't matter to him.

People might find me attractive, but it's also my job to prove that I can be intelligent.

You don't have to be emaciated or vomiting to be suffering. All people who live their lives on a diet are suffering.

It sounds so trite, but my private life is mine.

I don't even like watching sex scenes in movies. I have a slight prudish side to me.