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.

Joy acts like a trampoline, everything that touches it bouncing right back off it.

Life is rife with frustrations, jealousies and, on occasion, an overwhelming sense of its injustices, but it's a big mistake to let such negative sentiments rule our lives and dictate choices.

Every friendship goes through ups and downs. Dysfunctional patterns set in, external situations cause internal friction, you grow apart and then bounce back together.

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.

I was told that when you hit forty men stop looking at you. It's true, until you slip on a mini-skirt.

I wasn't allowed to be clever when I was young and blonde, but now I am 50 and an old blonde, I am allowed to have gravitas. With wrinkles comes wisdom.

Like cars, every relationship requires a bit of an occasional service, and fine-tuning should be compulsory.

For most of us, when our 'dreams' - I use the word with reservations - came true, and marriage and motherhood became a reality, the romcoms, like horoscopes, swiftly lost their allure.

Since so many romantic comedies vary little in their storyline, the success or failure of such movies depends largely on whether we believe in the relationship of the protagonists.

Having a baby is a disaster for your career. I don't think there's any sympathy.

Beauty is something I cannot seem to take as a given. It seems to lie too disadvantageously in the eyes of beholders.

The moment when a feeling enters the body/ is political. This touch is political

His heart is kind and those big hands are soft. He speaks a language that can change what I believe.

The interviewer should just tell me the words he wants me to say and I’ll repeat them after him. I think that would be so great because I’m so empty I just can’t think of anything to say.

What the result means is that the Franco-German axis is in serious trouble. It's the end of a phase which began in 2002.

I welcome all the signs indicating that a more manly and warlike age is commencing, which will, above all, bring heroism again into honour!

Love burdens itself with the wants and woes and losses and even the wrongs of others.

There are those who never stretch out the hand for fear it will be bitten. But those who never stretch out the hand will never feel it clasped in friendship.

Just as established products and brands need updating to stay alive and vibrant, you periodically need to refresh or reinvent yourself.

I tried a very fancy attack I'd learned in France, which involved a beat, a feint in quarte, a feint in sixte, and a lunge veering off into an attack on his wrist. I nicked him, and the blood flowed.