Mariella Frostrup

“Saturday and Sunday mornings are the only time the children are allowed to turn on the television.”

“Men that aren't threatened by opinionated, faintly aggressive women are in a minority.”

“Placing 'amicable' and 'separation' together creates an oxymoron - we don't usually decide to end a partnership until the very sight of our soon-to-be ex fills us with disgust, misery, agony or a combination of all three.”

“I recognise my old self in a lot of the letters I get from single women who are unrealistic about what they want.”

“Had Elizabeth Bennet known how wildly Darcy's heart beat for her, 'Pride and Prejudice' would barely have made it into a short story. Their torturously slow-burning romance is a classic example of how men and women still struggle to communicate the most basic of emotions.”

“Romantic comedies seem to take over where the fairytales of childhood left off, feeding our dreams of a soulmate; though, sadly, the Hollywood endings prove quite elusive in the real world.”

“Mixed messages are just part and parcel of the romantic terrain, and rather than berate yourself for any crossed wires, you'd do better to work on your future resilience.”

“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.”

“It's an absolute disgrace that there isn't a books programme on the BBC.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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 was raised a socialist by two very socialist parents, and I still feel very animated about socialist principles.”

“It's a universal truth that no parent wishes to acknowledge that the fear and phobias we are in thrall to in adulthood almost invariably connect back to childhood experiences.”

“Girls have a tendency to take responsibility for romantic misinterpretations, when often it's men whose perfectly honed emotional inscrutability makes life more complicated than it should be.”

“We inhabit a world where we're taught that we can have what we desire, and tend to act on it - the least we can do is admit to it when we succumb to our instincts.”

“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.”

“Only those with skin as thick as elephant hide can hope to sail through their teens unscathed by self-doubt and bouts of depression.”

“Kids are like glue: they can bond together, unlikely companions, even when there is little else left to maintain the connection.”