Sustaining true friendship is a lot more challenging than we give it credit for.
— Mariella Frostrup
Too often we forget that an ideal partner is someone who enhances an already full existence.
Contrary to popular mythology, the best and most durable relationships are based not on vulnerability or passion but on a conjugation of positive attributes, a meeting of mind, body and soul that is all the more powerful as it is not weighed down with neediness and unreasonable expectation.
Normally, the thin-skinned have an endless array of excuses for why their workaday interactions are so much harder to bear for them than for the rest of us. In the eyes of the self-suffering, they are being victimised, used and always abused, when they're actually experiencing exactly the same body blows as the rest of us.
Men want children later, but women can't rely on being able to. So I'm all for scientific advances and the help they can give people.
I met Jason on a charity walk in 2001, and we got married on a friend's boat in Panama two years later. It was the perfect wedding for two people who'd already been married and who weren't teenagers.
In my late teens and early twenties, I thought having children was possibly the most irresponsible thing you could do because I thought that the world was a dreadful place; I thought the sooner we all got off the planet, the better.
I couldn't choose a favourite author, but two contemporary writers who have never disappointed me are Tim Winton and Alice Munro.
Of course, I'd like to earn Jonathan Ross's money, but I don't have sleepless nights wondering when someone's going to knock on my door with sacks of cash.
I don't want my daughter to think she has to dress like Beyonce!
It's an absolute disgrace that there isn't a books programme on the BBC.
Television executives only commission something that somebody else has already commissioned that's doing well on another station - they're afraid of expecting an audience to concentrate for longer than three minutes on any particular item.
First, I was a glacial blonde doing music programmes. Then I was the film kind of sexy bird late at night. It was frustrating like I guess it's frustrating for everyone who is not fully employing their talents.
I used to routinely turn down things that might compound the impression that I was some kind of vacuous blonde. But now, when I look back, I think I should have done them because I would be very rich - being taken seriously isn't all it's cracked up to be.
If I ever write a book, it will be called 'Bottle Blonde.'
I was raised a socialist by two very socialist parents, and I still feel very animated about socialist principles.
I have had demanding jobs since I was 18 years old. I have had two sick days in all my working life.
As we mature, there are people with whom we run out of steam, but there are also those with whom a little straight talking would prove rewarding.
Far too many girls' and women's romantic relationships are formed around a negation of their own worth and attributes rather than a confirmation of them.
There are more than enough people with serious mental issues who really do need professional help without all the other Toms, Dicks and Harriets rushing to the therapist's couch.
I've been accused of riding roughshod over others' emotions, and I admit, when I feel a friend is being over-indulgent, my patience is in short supply.
Having a baby is a disaster for your career. I don't think there's any sympathy.
I used to go out with someone who was a really great diver, and we used to go to all the great dive spots all over the globe - although I would spend most of my time crying because I was often too scared to go into the water. But once I was in the water, I loved it.
The sight of parents, children and grandparents all descending on a tented field to enjoy the pleasure of ideas and books renews my faith in humanity.
I love physical books, can't bear to throw them away, and am drowning under the weight of my collection, but I do a lot of my work reading now on my iPad.
Whenever the party-girl tag gets attached to my name, it makes me want to snort with derision.
I'm a control freak. And more so now that I have children.
If I was going to write something, I'd need to stop for three months and just see if I had any thoughts in there.
I have a very childish attitude to books - a very non-analytic enthusiasm... like Alice falling down the chute.
Nothing can prepare you for the all-consuming nature of motherhood, and I am very aware of my good fortune, as I spent years fretting about whether I'd ever meet anyone to have a baby with.
The idea of exposing the British public to the full breadth of my personality isn't a good one.
I love my children, but I don't really want to talk about them. I'm not that much of a freakish middle-aged mother, I'm just very lucky, and there isn't much more to say. I'd like not to be constantly expected to be a spokesman for things that are part of the natural rhythm of a woman's life.
Ageing is one of those battles you're not going to win. I'll try to look as good as I can as long as I can. I don't think I'll do cosmetic surgery because I'm a wimp.
I was brought up in the countryside in Ireland and would go bonkers if I couldn't escape the city. I like to wake and hear birds tweeting, not the low drone of traffic.
In romance, we feel the need to zoom in and expound on our partner's foibles in intimate detail; in friendship, we tend to do the opposite, avoiding confrontation through fear, lethargy or both.
What an unappealing responsibility that is to lumber any prospective lover with: the need to be a saviour, not simply an equal partner.
Often, those who bruise easily spend too much time thinking about themselves. I'd go so far as to say that oversensitivity is a privilege of the underoccupied. The majority of people don't have the time to lavish care on emotional wounds - they're too busy getting on with living.
I would go out with people who really didn't like me very much and then wonder why we weren't getting married!
Writers want to talk. They can't wait to tell you what they've been thinking. And because they've been in solitude, they've had some fairly decent thoughts.
Coming from a broken home, I wanted to be as sure as I could be that my kids would have two parents who will stay together and bring them up.
Reading a book you are not enjoying is a torture not to be undertaken without a reward. I leave plays at the interval, too!
You're allowed to have gravitas when you've got the wrinkles to prove it, but not when you're attractive and younger - or, at least, you have to fight really hard to prove you're capable of productive thought.
If I was a man, I don't know if I'd settle down long before I was 50.
In person, George Clooney lives up to all your expectations.
My parents split up, and a lot of things going on in the outside world made me want to immerse myself in an alternative world.
When a father of a daughter dies, you elevate them. And you sort of deify them.
I have a producer friend who despairs that I come across as rather frosty and never show the real me, and she might have a point.
Men that aren't threatened by opinionated, faintly aggressive women are in a minority.
I recognise my old self in a lot of the letters I get from single women who are unrealistic about what they want.
I feel lucky that I had my children late. Not that I would advise it in any shape or form. But I know friends who had children when they were young, struggled with feeling trapped. I can honestly say I've never once resented the fact that I couldn't go out because of my kids.
