Quotes from Sue Townsend

She is just straight all the way up and down, including her nose and mouth and hair.

Be kind, for everybody you meet is fighting a hard battle' attributed to Plato, and many others

Eva said, Are you sure that it's my husband, Dr Brian Beaver, she's carrying on with? Only he's not the type. "He's a man, isn't he?" Said Nicola.

Goodness means telling good lies, so that people won't get hurt by true words.

remember that conversation is like ping pong. You say something, she says something. Then you respond to something she's just said, then she bats it back. You ask her a question. She replies. Do you get the idea?

As a journey begins with one step, so a crowd begins to collect with one person.

I remembered my resolution about helping the poor and ignorant today, so I took some of my old Beano annuals to a quite poor family who have moved into the next street. I know they are poor because they have only got a black and white telly. A boy answered the door. I explained why I had come. He looked at the annuals and said, 'I've read 'em,' and slammed the door in my face. So much for helping the poor!

In my opinion it is essential to get lost in a new city, that way you are forced to walk about and discover places at a proper, natural pace. But you must have the taxi fare home, and it helps if you can remember the name of your hotel.

Nothing was true for long. In time, everything was deconstructed.

Measured my 'thing'. It was eleven centimetres.

Bernard patted his arm and said, 'Hitesh, old flower, Christmas is exactly the same, it's you who have changed.

My grandma let the dog out of the coal shed. She said my mother was cruel to lock it up. The dog was sick on the kitchen floor. My grandma locked it up again.

I think Jane Austen should write something a bit more modern.

He was standing very still with his arms folded, staring with poached egg eyes.

I had my first wet dream!

Auf dem Schulweg begegnete ich unserem Briefträger. Er sagte mir, Mutter kaeme mich am Samstag besuchen. Am liebsten wuerde ich ihn seiner Dienststelle melden, weil er Privatpost liest.

He had always had difficulty in recognising an emotion.

Brian kept the photograph inside an Old Bible. He knew it would be safe there. Nobody ever opened it.

I don't know why people get so hot and bothered about sex. It's only the insertion of a penis into a nearby vagina.

food cooked without love was bad food.

It's amazing what you can get used to, given time.

FRIDAY APRIL 17TH Good Friday Poor Jesus, it must have been dead awful for him. I wouldn't have had the guts to do it myself. The dog has mauled the hot-cross buns; it doesn't respect any traditions.

After what I seen today, I'll never sleep again.

Paul walked with something screwed up tight inside him … yet he chatted away with his mother. He would never have confessed to her how he suffered over these things and she only partly guessed." D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers