Whenever I am sent a new book on the lively arts, the first thing I do is look for myself in the index.

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.

To paraphrase several sages: Nobody can think and hit someone at the same time.

If I was going to spend the next day in jail for obstruction of justice, I'd better get a good nights sleep.

So this is how liberty dies. With thunderous applause.

I think, ultimately, looking back now, acting wasn't satisfying me 100%.

Music is not disposable, people. We can twist it, sample it, mash it and experience it in endless ways. Open up.

Beauty is a type of art everyone is trying to perfect, but no one realizes it's abstract art.

Your body is the harp of your soul and it is yours to bring forth sweet music from it or confused sounds.

He has found his style, when he cannot do otherwise.

Here in this body are the sacred rivers, here are the sun and moon, as well as the pilgrimage places. I have not encountered another temple as blissful as my own body

I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching.