Rachel Cusk's books are like pop-up volumes for grown-ups, the prose springing out of the page to bop you neatly between the eyes with its insights.

Amsterdam has more than 150 canals and 1,250 bridges, but it never seems crowded, nor bent and bitter from fleecing the tourist.

It has been said that a pretty face is a passport. But it's not, it's a visa, and it runs out fast.

What sort of sap doesn't know by now that picture-perfect beauty is all done with smoke and mirrors anyway?

Families, generally, suck. And I say that as someone who, like my husband, had parents who proved the proverbial exception to the rule.

The freedom that women were supposed to have found in the Sixties largely boiled down to easy contraception and abortion; things to make life easier for men, in fact.

Here in Barcelona, it's the architects who built the buildings that made the city iconic who are the objects of admiration - not a bunch of half-witted monarchs.

The latest twist on the pampering concept is spa parties, where a group of friends take over an entire spa.

Gluttony and idleness are two of life's great joys, but they are not honourable.

My second husband believed I had such a fickle attitude to friendship that each Friday he would update the list of my 'Top Ten' friends in the manner of a Top Of The Pops chart countdown.

Make no mistake, most women are well aware that they've never had it so good; when they enter a spa or salon, it is purely a hair/nails thing, a prelude to an evening of guilt-free fun.

Philosophy cannot be taught

Every body should be given the chance and the necessary support to unearth their full potential.

I have very strong feelings about how you lead your life. You always look ahead, you never look back.

Generosity without delicacy, like wit without judgment, generally gives as much pain as pleasure.

I would describe my work as expressionist. The expressionist point of view is stressing your own feelings about something.

Dreams get you started; discipline keeps you going.

Everybody wants to shine a little bit, even a wallflower.

With the war and everything that's going on, unless you're Susan Sarandon, the best route is to keep your mouth shut. For me it is, anyway!

I always work from an outline.

It's a guilty secret of a lot of writers, as you get older you don't read as much fiction as you used to, mainly because it's like you are deconstructing it all the time.