Elizabeth Jane Howard quotes:

Does breakfast in bed count as a morning workout?

Holidays were invented so single women could overeat without feeling guilty.

Charity felt rather snoozy after the long sermon, and she was really very grateful when Reverend Meeps offered her a cup of tea. Church was not so bad when the minister remembered you were only human.

The craze of genealogy is connected with the epidemic for divorce. If we can't figure out who our living relatives are, then maybe we'll have more luck with the dead ones.

For a single girl in London, luck isn't always a glass slipper that fits. Sometimes luck is a splash of mud from a passing bus.

You can't run from feelings, Charity. You have to face them. Otherwise your future will look just like your past.

Why does getting ahead always have to involve getting up early?

It's better to oversleep and miss the boat than get up early and sink.

A rainy day is like a lovely gift -- you can sleep late and not feel guilty.

Laughter is just like champagne -- only without the headache afterwards.

A massage is just like a movie, really relaxing and a total escape, except in a massage you're the star. And you don't miss anything by falling asleep!

I think best in a hot bath, with my head tilted back and my feet up high.

I'm not lazy. I'm just really gifted, only instead of being good at music or math I'm good at sleeping late.

I'm not particularly keen on pity. Pity takes something away from grief. People think they're sharing it, but really they're just taking some. I prefer to keep my grief intact.

I have lived my life in the slipstream of experience

When you fall asleep after a big lunch you're really just saving up energy to work off all the calories later on.

It's not a luxury if you can't do without it!

Charity groped for the phone, coming up with it at last and croaking "hello" in a voice that sounded exactly like a bullfrog's mating call. Which made a kind of twisted sense - last night she'd been hunting for a mate as well.

Sex is like petrol. It's a galvaniser, a wonderful fuel for starting a relationship.