“Before this, when I'd admired my colleagues for being so calm, I had creditied them with a greater level of maturity and wisdom than I had. I now wonder if I was being too complimentary and that instead, like me, they'd just lost their give-a-shit too.”

“I'm ashamed to reveal that, even as a teanager, I was guilty of participanting in the mummy wars and jusging another woman for her mothering preferences. It seems that the stay-at-home mothers are still being accused of being anti-feminist and poor role models to their daughters, whereas working mothers have been accused of everything from child abuse to being selfish feminists and inflating house prices. Women are pinched against other women, and no matter where you stand in this minefield, you can't help but notice that men seem to escape the guilt and the blame.”

“I explain that i want time off to write a book. Garry laughs at me and says I can't work part time simply because I want to. He says he can't set that sort of precedent in the organisation. If he lets me work part-time, everybody might want to do it.”

“Searching for answers, I ask Emma why she thinks women seem more over it than men. 'Because we don't have dicks,' she says simply.'By the time we get to our thirties we realised that a dick is far more valuable in the workplace than intellect, education, or dedication. We'll never have the necessary equipment.”

“Good writing is like porn to me.”

“I like being in control," was all Keely said, looking at him. She could have said, "I hate for anyone to know I don't know everything, that I sometimes feel so out of my depth that three lifesavers wouldn't keep me from drowning," but she didn't "What's so wrong with that?”

“My relationship had ended and Red had taken my son. My life was my own and I could do anything I wanted, yet I felt nothing. As I stood staring at the walls, searching inside myself for some kind of emotional response, the nothingness suddenly welled up inside me, like a physical mass, so vast and empty and infinite I was terrified. The very first time I went running, it was from that terror, from the possibility of being sucked down into emptiness for ever, and as I ran I discovered I was able to feel; pressure in my lungs, pain in my legs, my skin perspiring, the pounding of my heart.My routine was erratic, I ran when I felt like it, usually five or six times a month. So was my style. It was nothing like that of the runners I grew accustomed to seeing, the ones who regulated themselves, jogged two or three times a week, who did a warm-up first and stretching exercises afterwards, the people for whom the activity was a hobby. I ran like my life depended on it, as fast and as hard as I could. Sometimes, passers-by would look beyond me as I ran towards them, with fear in their eyes, trying to see who or what was pursuing me, trying to work out whether they should be running too. As long as I was feeling, I didn’t care.”