Quotes from Julie Burchill

A woman who looks like a girl and thinks like a man is the best sort, the most enjoyable to be and the most pleasurable to have and to hold.

As with most liberal sexual ideas, what makes the world a better place for men invariably makes it a duller and more dangerous place for women.

Big women do themselves a disservice when they attempt to become the Righteous Fat (the Righteous Thin are bad enough, all that running around and sweating, somehow believing it means anything).

When did women whose looks are not their living start conducting themselves like the simpering inmates of an Ottoman empire seraglio?

As a kid, I grew to define what I didn't want my life to be like by sitting behind moaning women on the bus, hearing them bang on about their aches and pains, both real and imagined.

'Stress' was the catch-all every pamper-pedlar I spoke to used to explain why healthy women feel the need to be regularly patted, petted and preened into a state of babyish beatification.

Some say that Cusk has no sense of humour, but expecting giggles from this writer would be akin to expecting sonnets from Benny Hill.

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.

It must be said that Brighton, unlike London, makes driving seem very appealing. Instead of glowering faces and angry horns on all sides, we have the coast road in front of us and the Sussex Downs just 10 minutes behind us.

When I moved out of London 13 years ago, I found a whole other reason not to drive. This was because my new husband Dan, unlike my dad, did drive, and this became a great source of fun and adventure.

We are used to female writers who use their private lives as unmitigated material being somewhat hormonal; this somehow 'excuses' what might be seen as a highly unfeminine ability to turn their personal upsets into money.

Because I was an only, I had more things, and I remember early on the kick I got from giving stuff away. Despite all the myths about only children not being able to share, actually I've never knowingly met a stingy one.

Surely being a Professional Beauty - let alone an ageing one - is one of the most insecure and doomed careers imaginable.

Whenever I am sent a new book on the lively arts, the first thing I do is look for myself in the index.

Women, more often than not, do things which aren't remotely relaxing but are all about preening, which is just another sort of work.

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

I have experienced jealousy, possessiveness, verbal abuse and violence from men, but I have also experienced jealousy, possessiveness, verbal abuse and violence from women, usually when I failed to respond to their advances.

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

It shouldn't come as any surprise that those who choose acting as a profession are phonies who live in a fantasy world. What is surprising is how many of them are blissfully unaware of it.

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.