Sue Townsend quotes:

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 always have this image of a woman running across a desert carrying children, trying to find water and food, not knowing when they'll get that. And her feet are slashed up from the dry, hard earth... Even when I'm uncomfortable, sometimes in pain, or just cold... I think, 'Thank God for what I've got.'

Watching 'The Jeremy Kyle Show' is my guilty pleasure.

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

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 always feel as if I'm a disappointment: that people want a grand dame in furs like Barbara Taylor Bradford.

When I was a child, I dreaded blindness. We used to ask: 'Would we rather be blind or deaf?' I said I'd rather be blind, even though I was scared of it. I couldn't bear not being able to hear music or talk to people.

My dark secrets are life threatening. Pockets of unhappiness set in aspic that build and build. I have this primitive feeling that if something good happens, it is going to be followed by something bad. There is always a price to pay.

The Gambler' by Dostoevsky. It was the first time I realised that it was possible to have good and evil in one person. It led me to read a lot of Russian literature.

People down on their luck deserve the best: beautiful surroundings and well-paid professional staff to help them out of their difficulties. Why not train thousands more social workers and let them sit in on claimants' interviews?

Being poor with three small children is terrifying. You can't make any plans. You know you're not going on holiday, ever. There's no way you could ever afford driving lessons or a car. And the guilt I used to feel: they had holes in their shoes, and at one point, I had to send them to school wearing Wellingtons when the sun was shining.

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

My second husband encouraged me to go to a writing group at our local theatre. It was my 'coming out of the closet' moment.

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.

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.

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?

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

We had library books in our house, but not our own. So you had 14 days to read them. There would be eight books a fortnight in our house and I'd read as many of those as I could.

I always write back to people who are kind enough to write to me. Actually, I don't write - I recline on my red velvet sofa with my feet on the coffee table and dictate the letters to my eldest son.

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 DSS offices are not given enough funding, their staff are poorly paid and are driven to distraction by the amount of work they have to do. There is frequent turnover of staff. Morale is extremely low. Working with desperate people all day is very dispiriting; their unhappiness rubs off on you.

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.

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.

My cream and black Aga. It is the heart of the house, and people congregate around it.

I am a very independent person, and I, you know, I maintain that independence, but, you know, certain things - I mean, it takes, you know, it's just much easier for other people if other people can help you every now and again.

In the playground, I always made people laugh; I used to charge them three pence for an impression of a teacher. It kept me in toffees.

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

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

Sex with the gorilla went on a bit, but once he'd stumbled over my clitoris we both had good times."

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 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.

I don't like to be noticed. The older I've got, the more reclusive I've become. I've got late-onset shyness. People are lovely. When they see me in the street, they don't ask for anything from me. They just say: 'I thought it was you, and I just wanted to say how much I enjoy your books,' but I can't seem to cope with it anymore.

When all my kids were at home, I used to write from midnight onwards.

I must have been a very strange child. I was very pretentious. Like Adrian Mole.

I have a slight addiction to Diet Coke, and, of course, I absolutely shouldn't touch it because it makes the kidneys work really hard.

I do think that books, good books, free you. They make you feel a citizen of the world and things like class, sex and age don't matter. They're the greatest leveler.

I always wanted to be Jo in 'Little Women.' She's a bit reckless and feckless, always getting into trouble like me. But I'm probably more like Madame Bovary.

I'm getting to the end of my magnifying glasses now. One eye's gone completely. The other is gradually dimming. Dimming - that sounds very dramatic, doesn't it? I'm so lucky. I can still make a living - and the same kind of living.

I took my sight and mobility for granted.

I usually listen to the same thing over and over again: Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto in D Major. And Leonard Cohen.

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 am the world's worst diabetic.

'The Gambler' by Dostoevsky. It was the first time I realised that it was possible to have good and evil in one person. It led me to read a lot of Russian literature.

In the early days, it was, you know, I used to weep while I was writing. I used to grab at any kind of anything, any hint, any tip of how to make it easy.

I became an insomniac, really, hardly slept at all, didn't even try to. And it's carried on. I hate to say I only need as much sleep as Mrs. Thatcher, but I can cope really well on five hours.

Lack of confidence - every time I start a new piece of work, it seems I have to spend a long while under the duvet thinking I can't do it.

I seem to be able to get depressed quite easily without any reason.

I take life very seriously. I can laugh at it, because what else can you do? But it's a hard daily battle.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Love is the only thing that keeps me sane ...

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

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.

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

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