If you want something you can't afford, think what else that money could buy: a week's groceries, a month's rent, or a weekend away. That will put things into perspective.

We're all to driven by materialism. Obsessed with success. With money. With trying to impress people who'll never be impressed.

When I shop, the world gets better, and the world is better, but then it's not, and I need to do it again.
(Confessions of a Shopaholic-the movie)

Remember what I used to tel you when you were a little girl? ‘A fool and her money soon part.’ Current-day translation? Stop pissing away your assets at Bloomingdale’s.

I think a lot of people still fantasise about that first love and what might happen if they rekindled the relationship.

When I wrote my first book, 'The Tennis Party', my overriding concern was that I didn't write the autobiographical first novel. I was so, so determined not to write about a 24-year-old journalist. It was going to have male characters, and middle-aged people, so I could say, 'Look, I'm not just writing about my life, I'm a real author.'