"What I find most upsetting about this new all-consuming beauty culture is that the obsession with good looks, and how you can supposedly attain them, is almost entirely female-driven."

"It's received wisdom that the English are uniquely child-unfriendly."

"Mind you, I've always been a very off-message type of fat broad one who gladly admits she reached the size she is now solely through lack of discipline and love of pleasure, and who rather despises people (except those with proven medical conditions) who pretend that it is generally otherwise."

"There's something brave and touching about game girls of all ages keeping themselves smart in hard times - one thinks of those wonderful women during World War II drawing stocking seams in eyebrow pencil up the back of legs stained with gravy browning because nylons were so hard to get hold of."

"It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness."

"People can try to reinvent themselves. I don't think you can really change who you are, though, because who you are is pretty much where you came from and what you've done up to now."

"The simplest truths often reveal that the beauty of life is found in its imperfections."

"Beauty in art is the harmony of spirit, intellect, and craft. Let this simple maxim guide your daily deeds."