A wanted pregnancy as much as a dreaded pregnancy can play differently than all one's previous imaginings.

I've always felt very sympathetic from the first days of writing about women that, whatever the woman, whether she is trying to be a woman in the conventional sense or breaking the boundaries, those struggles are quite difficult.

No one likes to feel helpless. We find it psychologically unbearable and inside ourselves we may try to make ourselves part author of our misfortune rather than simply the recipient of it.

Beauty has been democratised. No longer the preserve of movie stars and models but available to all. But while the invitation to beauty is welcomed, it has become not so much an option as an imperative.

The parents' job is to be there for their kids, not the other way round. Troubles between parents need to be talked through with friends and not visited on the children.

Our idea of a healthy body is so destabilised that insecure people have come to bolster their own bodies by deeming others - those with fat bodies - less worthy, less capable and less employable.

Public intellectuals come from a range of areas and use their expertise to comment more widely than just their field. They want to make a contribution to public space, and they stick their necks out to do it.