People - and I include myself - get fat because they choose pleasure over self-denial.

Amsterdam has more than 150 canals and 1,250 bridges, but it never seems crowded, nor bent and bitter from fleecing the tourist.

It has been said that a pretty face is a passport. But it's not, it's a visa, and it runs out fast.

What sort of sap doesn't know by now that picture-perfect beauty is all done with smoke and mirrors anyway?

Families, generally, suck. And I say that as someone who, like my husband, had parents who proved the proverbial exception to the rule.

The freedom that women were supposed to have found in the Sixties largely boiled down to easy contraception and abortion; things to make life easier for men, in fact.

Here in Barcelona, it's the architects who built the buildings that made the city iconic who are the objects of admiration - not a bunch of half-witted monarchs.

The latest twist on the pampering concept is spa parties, where a group of friends take over an entire spa.

Gluttony and idleness are two of life's great joys, but they are not honourable.

My second husband believed I had such a fickle attitude to friendship that each Friday he would update the list of my 'Top Ten' friends in the manner of a Top Of The Pops chart countdown.

Make no mistake, most women are well aware that they've never had it so good; when they enter a spa or salon, it is purely a hair/nails thing, a prelude to an evening of guilt-free fun.

But this was no ordinary chicken. This chicken was evil manifest.

The one thing Cristiano Ronaldo has is pace, quick feet and a great eye for goal.

The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who’ll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work.

Salvation and Christ's love is a gift. You don't earn it. You've got to receive that gift.

Choose well those with whom you travel.

I collect imported teas, I have a few cupboards full! It's like wine, each has it's own flavour and you get into their little nuances.

..to write and to live are very different. Many who praise virtue, do no more than praise it.

Knowledge should be a public good, and I want my ideas to have as much exposure as possible.

I really dislike watching myself on screen. I am very insecure about my acting. We are our own biggest critics. I have to sit in another room to my parents when they watch it.

Nothing is so impenetrable as laughter in a language you don't understand.