Helen Fielding

“Maybe there are just some men like that in the world, I thought. Men who have to be in charge, who have to punish those who awaken feelings in them which they cannot control. Men who will lure you with tenderness till you believe that you are safe then slap you down. Men whom it is impossible for anyone to love without losing their dignity. Men who have to damage those who love them most. But, then, I had fallen on love with one, so what did that make me?”

“Funny how at twenty-five you worry about not being taken seriously and take being a sex object for granted. Later you take being taken seriously for granted, and worry about not being a sex object.”

“Weightless (in air), alcohol units 8 (but in-flight so canceled out by altitude), cigarettes 0 (desperate: no-smoking seat), calories 1 million (entirely made up of things would never have dreamt of putting in self's mouth were they not on in-flight tray), farts from traveling companion 38 (so far), variations in fart aroma 0.”

“No one is thinking about you. They're thinking about themselves, just like you.”

“..we were always taught, instead of waiting to be swept off our feet, to 'expect little, forgive much'.”

“Oh God. valentine's Day tomorrow. Why? Why? Why is (the) entire world geared to make people not involved in romance feel stupid when everyone knows romance does not work anyway. Look at (the) royal family. Look at Mum and Dad.”

“Valentine's Day purely commercial, cynical enterprise, anyway. Matter of supreme indifference to me.”

“One must not live one's life through men but must be complete on oneself as a woman of substance.”

“I keep telling you, nobody wants legs like a stick insect. They want a bottom they can park in a bike in and balance a pint of beer on.”

“The whole bloody world's got a commitment problem.It's the three-minute culture. It's a global attention-span deficit.”

“The plans to lose weight and change personality kept me aloft for two days, only to collapse around my ears. I realize it was only a complicated form ofdenial.”

“this sort of, arrogant individualism which imagines each new generation can somehow create the world afresh.”

“Would that Christmas could just be, without presents. It is just so stupid, everyoneexhausting themselves, miserably hemorrhaging money on pointless items nobody wants: nolonger tokens of love but angst-ridden solutions to problems. (Hmm. Though must admit, pretty bloody pleased to have new handbag.) What is the point of entire nation rushing round for sixweeks in a bad mood preparing for utterly pointless Taste-of-Others exam which entire nation thenfails and gets stuck with hideous unwanted merchandise as fallout?”

“I hate Christmas. Everything is designed for families, romance, warmth, emotion and presents, and if you have no boyfriend, no money, your mother is going out with a missing Portuguese criminal and your friends don't want to be your friend anymore, it makes you want to emigrate to a vicious Muslim regime, where at least all thewomen are treated like social outcasts. Anyway, I don't care. I am going to quietly read a book allweekend and listen to classical music.”

“Reminded of favorite poem by Wendy Cope which goes:At Christmas little children sing and merry bells jingle.The cold winter air makes our hands and faces tingle.And happy families go to church and cheerily they mingle,And the whole business is unbelievably dreadful if you're single.”

“I know we're all psychotic, single and completely dysfunctional and it's all done over the phone,' Tom slurred sentimentally, 'but it's a bit like a family, isn't it?”

“Singletons should not have to explain themselves all the time but should have anaccepted status — like geisha girls do”

“Work — once merely an annoying nuisance — has become an agonizing torture.”

“It seems wrong and unfair that Christmas, with its stressful and unmanageable financial and emotional challenges, should first be forced upon one wholly against one's will, then rudely snatched away just when one is starting to get into it.”

“One minute you're closer to someone than anyone in the whole world, next minute they need only to say the words 'time apart', 'serious talk' or 'maybe you...' and you're never going to see them again and will have to spend the next six months having imaginary conversations in which they beg to come back, and bursting into tears at the sight of their toothbrush.”

“When someone loves you it's like having a blanket all round your heart...”

“I am not interested in emotional fuckwittage.”

“Chiamarsi Darcy e starsene tutto solo con aria sdegnosa a una festa mi ha subito colpita come una cosa abbastanza ridicola, un po' come se, in Cime Tempestose, Heathcliff passasse tuttta la serata in giardino a gridare "Cathy" e a sbattere la testa contro un tronco.”

“Sink into morbid, cynical reflection on how much romantic heartbreak is to do with ego and miffed pride rather than actual loss”

“Oh, God, I'm so lonely. An entire weekend streching ahead with no one to love or have fun with. Anyway, I don't care. I've got a lovely steamed ginger pudding from M&S to put in the microwave.”

“I'm no good at anything. Not men. Not social skills. Not work. Nothing.”

“You can't be ironic about dead people.”

“Being a woman is worse than being a farmer there is so much harvesting and crop spraying to be done: legs to be waxed, underarms shaved, eyebrows plucked, feet pumiced, skin exfoliated and moisturised, spots cleansed, roots dyed, eyelashes tinted, nails filed, cellulite massaged, stomach muscles exercised.The whole performance is so highly tuned you only need to neglect it for a few days for the whole thing to go to seed. Sometimes I wonder what I would be like if left to revert to nature — with a full beard and handlebar moustache on each shin Dennis Healey eyebrows face a graveyard of dead skin cells spots erupting long curly fingernails like Struwelpeter blind as bat and stupid runt of species as no contact lenses flabby body flobbering around. Ugh ugh. Is it any wonder girls have no confidence?”

“Emotional fuckwittage”

“You'll never get a boyfriend if you look like you wandered out of Auschwitz.”

“I looked at him nonplussed. I realized that I have spent so many years being on a diet that the idea that you might actually need calories to survive has been completely wiped out of my consciousness. Have reached point where believe nutritional ideal is to eat nothing at all, and that the only reason people eat is because they are so greedy they cannot stop themselves from breaking out and ruining their diets.”

“Oh God, what's wrong with me? Why does nothing ever work out?”

“As women glide from their twenties to thirties, Shazzer argues, the balance of power subtly shifts. Even the most outrageous minxes lose their nerve, wrestling with the first twinges of existential angst: fears of dying alone and being found three weeks later half-eaten by an Alsatian.”

“Bridget: Thank you, Daniel, that is very good to know. But if staying here means working within 10 yards of you, frankly, I'd rather have a job wiping Saddam Hussein's arse.”

“That is such crap. How dare you be so fraudulently flirtatious, cowardly and dysfunctional? I am not interested in emotional fuckwittage. Goodbye.”

“I am a child of Cosmopolitan culture, have been traumatized by supermodels and too many quizzes and know that neither my personality nor my body is up to it if left to its own devices. I can't take the pressure.”

“Thank you, Daniel, that is very good to know. But if staying here means working within 10 yards of you, frankly, I'd rather have a job wiping Saddam Hussein's arse.”

“But if you are single the last thing you want is your best friend forming a functional relationship with somebody else.”

“Quite quickly I grew less deranged. I had begun the process of calming down, assimilating and compromising, which is necessary to live comfortably in the world as it is, and probably is why its imbalance never changes. But underneath, my idea of life was completely altered.”

“If you ask where a relationship is going too often the question has a habit of turning into where the relationship went. Unfortunately, however, God has given women an inbuilt irresistible urge to insist on knowing where their relationships are going, and to force their partners to discuss the matter at length whenever they are late for something.”

“Come on, let's get you a drink. How's your love life, anyway?Oh God. Why can't married people understand that this is no longer a polite question to ask? We wouldn't rush up to them and roar, "How's your marriage going? Still have sex?”

“Went to Jude's party tonight in a tight little black dress to show off figure feeling v. full of myself... ... There's nothing worse than people telling you you looked tired. They might as well have done with it and say you look like five kinds of shit.”

“Eventually, I manage to cheer Mum up by allowing her to go through my wardrobe and criticize all my clothes...”

“It is proved by surveys that happiness does not come from love, wealth, or power but the pursuit of attainable goals.”

“zdjęcia księcia Williama mogłabym oglądać w ilościach hurtowych, najlepiej w całej gamie strojów, ale oczywiście zdaję sobie sprawę z tego, że żądza ta jest czymś niepożądanym i niewłaściwym”

“Don't say 'what,' say 'pardon,' darling, and do as your mother tells you.”

“I realize it has become too easy to find a diet to fit in with whatever you happen to feel like eating and that diets are not there to be picked and mixed but picked and stuck to, which is exactly what I shall begin to do once I've eaten this chocolate croissant.”

“Can officially confirm that the way to a man's heart these days is not through beauty, food, sex, or alluringness of character, but merely the ability to seem not very interested in him.”

“When someone leaves you, apart from missing them, apart from the fact that the whole little world you've created together collapses, and that everything you see or do reminds you of them, the worst is the thought that they tried you out and, in the end, the whole sum of parts adds up to you got stamped REJECT by the one you love. How can you not be left with the personal confidence of a passed over British Rail sandwich?”

“The basis of my own addiction, I know, is my simple human need for Darcy to get off with Elizabeth. Tom says football guru Nick Hornby says in his book that men's obsession with football is not vicarious. The testosterone-crazed fans do not wish themselves on the pitch, claims Hornby, instead seeing their team as their chosen representatives, rather like parliament. That is precisely my feeling about Darcy and Elizabeth. They are my chosen representatives in the field of shagging, or, rather, courtship. I do not, however, wish to see any actual goals. I would hate to see Darcy and Elizabeth in bed, smoking a cigarette afterwards. That would be unnatural and wrong and I would quickly lose interest.”