Grace Dent

“I gave up eating outdoors in London in the 1990s, when it became impossible to eat at an outside table without a small gang of buskers turning up to play a rousing chorus of 'La Bamba' on their accordions while you waved off hornets with the menu.”

“I don't like birthdays. Never have done. Not when I was little and it involved the wild decadence of a Wimpy Brown Derby doughnut with chocolate drizzle, and even less so as I grew older.”

“All friendship groups divide into two halves: moody ex-goths who don't mind summer lunch indoors while sipping ice-cold pastis with damp backs-of-knees; and those Club Tropicana types who call ahead to jostle for the one terrace table that's in direct sunlight and from which you'll be lucky to leave with any skin left on your shoulders.”

“My rule of thumb with being in the closet is, as long as you're not spending Sundays thumping a bible about Sodom, or weekdays in the Commons reducing LGBT funding, I'll respectfully await your return ticket from Narnia, if, and not when it comes.”

“What 'Transparent' actually is if you give it a chance is a compelling, intoxicating look at family, siblings, secrets, divorce, being Jewish, mid-life anguish and 'paradise syndrome' malaise.”

“Give me an impromptu 50-person guest list, a fold-out emergency trestle table and a pack of frozen vol-au-vent cases and, darlings, I will give you a party.”

“I am abundant in crap, yet weirdly amazing, let's-all-make-the-best-of-this half-term memories. Looking back, those family holidays were really just a chance to take the mick out of each other, pointing out each other's shortcomings, in the same old manner, in a fresh and uncharted setting.”

“The one thing society loathes more than a wrinkly, wind-battered old bird trying to keep a high-profile career afloat is the famous woman who refuses to age.”

“The truth is I love animals more than I love most humans.”

“There are no magical solutions to our nation's housing problem.”

“It's perfectly easy to make a British Christmas dinner for the very first time, even if you're not a remotely skilled cook.”

“Microwaving cooks food from the inside out, so you can say goodbye to spongy aubergines and hello to beautifully soft flesh that soaks up the marinade as it cooks.”

“Everybody you meet, when you're a restaurant critic, tells you they'd love to be your dinner companion.”

“By the 90s, we'd got sniffy about sending infants over two lanes of moving traffic to fetch sliced Hovis. It has, I think, something to do with health and safety. Such errands wound up back in the hands of the adults.”

“Much of Sheeran's appeal is that his music skewers the mood of being youthful.”

“My freezer always has veggie burgers in it. I don't think you should eat them every day, but they're really handy.”

“The most enlightened types by 2050, I think, will be humans who can flip between constant media stimulation and digital detox without clinging and craving.”

“One of the aspects of trying to 'have it all' as a modern feminist blowhard is that another woman ends up lint-rollering cat hair off your sofa and harshly judging your slapdash method of Q-tip disposal.”

“If they said: 'Would you like to be on Gogglebox?' I would just stand up, put my shoes on and begin walking there now. I'd go on with Tom Parker Bowles. Because I love him. And he's so funny.”

“I am definitely guilty of using social media at a restaurant dining table and I don't see a problem with sharing the odd snap of your meal here and there.”