Sue Townsend Quotes

Will you lie to me and promise to read them? Books need to be read. The pages need to be turned.

Yes, I hate it when people call me a 'national treasure'. It takes away your bite and makes you feel like a harmless old golden Labrador.

Love is the only thing that keeps me sane.

Most social problems could be helped or prevented if people had more money and practical advice.

I married two weeks after my 18th birthday, far too young, and by the time I was 23 I was a single mother of three small children, Sean, Daniel and Victoria, living in a prefab house.

I don't know why women are so mad about flowers. Personally, they leave me cold. I prefer trees.

I've always loved books. I'm passionate about them. I think books are sexy. They are smooth and solid and contain delightful surprises. They smell good. They fit into a handbag and can be carried around and opened at will. They don't change. They are what they are and nothing else. One day I want to own a lot of books and have them nbear to me in my house, so that I can stroll to my bookshelves and choose what I fancy. I want a harem. I shall keep my favourites by my bed.

Every time I start a new piece of work, I spend a long while under the duvet thinking I can't do it.

There's only one thing more boring than listening to other people's dreams, and that's listening to their problems.

I am from the working class. I am now what I was then. No amount of balsamic vinegar and Prada handbags could make me forget what it was like to be poor.

8.45 a.m. My mother is in the hospital grounds smoking a cigarette. She is looking old and haggard. All the debauchery is catching up with her.

I'm spectacularly disorganised. I wrote my latest book in seven different notebooks scattered throughout my house.

I think we take it for granted that if you are with your husband after 30 years, then he is the love of your life.

The monarchy is finished. It was finished a while ago, but they're still making the corpses dance.

Sometimes I rant, in a comical way, about how the gods give with one hand and take with the other.

It's no surprise to me that intellectuals commit suicide, go mad or die from drink. We feel things more than other people. We know the world is rotten and that chins are ruined by spots.

My skin is dead good. I think it must be a combination of being in love and Lucozade.

I'd love a day devoid of responsibilities. I've often thought about going to a hotel just to have a day away from everything.

She liked people. Me, I can take them or leave them, but mostly leave them.

Adrian Mole's father was so angry that so many pepole got divorced nowadays. HE had been unhappilly married for 30 years, why should everybody else get away?

I have decided to keep a full journal, in the hope that my life will perhaps seem more interesting when it is written down.

I never imagined when I began writing in the early 1960s I'd become professional and my life would be transformed.

Barry Kent's father looks like a big ape and has got more hair on the back of his hands than my father has got on his entire head.

I think it's essential for comic writers to have a hate figure, a despot, a regime to react against, and I think Thatcher was perfect for me, I loathed everything she stood for.

I asked Mr. Vann which O levels you need to write situation comedy for television. Mr. Vann said that you don't need qualifications at all, you just need to be a moron.

I have decided to be a poet. My father said there isn't a suitable career structure for poets and no pensions and other boring things, but I am quite decided.

Now I know I am an intellectual. I saw Malcolm Muggeridge on the television last night, and I understood nearly every word. It all adds up. A bad home, poor diet, not liking punk. I think I will join the library and see what happens.

Yes - I am usually overweight. I have had to be interested in diet because of being diabetic for 30 years and having kidney failure.

I am surrounded by counselors. My sister is a counselor. My daughter is training to be a counselor. A lot of my friends are counselors.

I took my sight and mobility for granted.

I am the world's worst diabetic.