Mariella Frostrup
In romance, we feel the need to zoom in and expound on our partner's foibles in intimate detail; in friendship, we tend to do the opposite, avoiding confrontation through fear, lethargy or both.Collection: Friendship
I met Jason on a charity walk in 2001, and we got married on a friend's boat in Panama two years later. It was the perfect wedding for two people who'd already been married and who weren't teenagers.Collection: Wedding
I hate the thought of my children being glued to a screen. Children only play on computers all day because their parents let them.Collection: Computers
We invest less in our friendships and expect more of friends than any other relationship. We spend days working out where to book for a romantic dinner, weeks wondering how to celebrate a partner or parent's birthday, and seconds forgetting a friend's important anniversary.Collection: Anniversary
I've been accused of riding roughshod over others' emotions, and I admit, when I feel a friend is being over-indulgent, my patience is in short supply.Collection: Patience
Sustaining true friendship is a lot more challenging than we give it credit for.Collection: Friendship
Having a baby is a disaster for your career. I don't think there's any sympathy.Collection: Sympathy
When I last looked, there weren't queues of eager guys under 40 hanging outside single ladies' doors begging them to give up work and have their babies. It takes two to tango and the same number, without medical help, to make a child.Collection: Medical
You only need to look at Jane Austen to see how crossed wires can become a defining aspect of romantic life. Then again, if the course of true love ran more smoothly, it would have a terribly detrimental effect on our cache of love stories.Collection: Romantic
Since so many romantic comedies vary little in their storyline, the success or failure of such movies depends largely on whether we believe in the relationship of the protagonists.Collection: Romantic
I have a very childish attitude to books - a very non-analytic enthusiasm... like Alice falling down the chute.Collection: Attitude
Mixed messages are just part and parcel of the romantic terrain, and rather than berate yourself for any crossed wires, you'd do better to work on your future resilience.Collection: Romantic
There are many ways to make the most of your time on the planet, and propagation of the species is just one of them. If you're convinced that it's the key to your happiness, there are routes open to you, whether with the help of modern medical science, marrying into a readymade one, or through fostering and adoption.Collection: Medical
Every friendship goes through ups and downs. Dysfunctional patterns set in; external situations cause internal friction; you grow apart and then bounce back together.Collection: Friendship
Quite honestly, if we do manage to destroy the planet with our devil-may-care attitude to natural resources, I'd suggest we leave, as a dossier in our defence, the collected letters to agony aunts and uncles down the generations. It would certainly prove that we weren't all bad!Collection: Attitude
Far too many girls' and women's romantic relationships are formed around a negation of their own worth and attributes rather than a confirmation of them.Collection: Romantic
Girls have a tendency to take responsibility for romantic misinterpretations, when often it's men whose perfectly honed emotional inscrutability makes life more complicated than it should be.Collection: Romantic
Romantic comedies seem to take over where the fairytales of childhood left off, feeding our dreams of a soulmate; though, sadly, the Hollywood endings prove quite elusive in the real world.Collection: Romantic
For many young women, the dream of independence and a home of their own is a tantalising goal, while a lifetime devoted solely to catering for another person's needs would be hard to countenance.Collection: Independence
I recognise my old self in a lot of the letters I get from single women who are unrealistic about what they want.
As a species, we tend to be doers, forever shaping and reshaping the world to better suit our purposes.
We inhabit a world where we're taught that we can have what we desire, and tend to act on it - the least we can do is admit to it when we succumb to our instincts.
Joy acts like a trampoline, everything that touches it bouncing right back off it.
As we mature, there are people with whom we run out of steam, but there are also those with whom a little straight talking would prove rewarding.
I was brought up in the countryside in Ireland and would go bonkers if I couldn't escape the city. I like to wake and hear birds tweeting, not the low drone of traffic.
Ageing is one of those battles you're not going to win. I'll try to look as good as I can as long as I can. I don't think I'll do cosmetic surgery because I'm a wimp.
Only those with skin as thick as elephant hide can hope to sail through their teens unscathed by self-doubt and bouts of depression.
The great advantage of being human is that we can employ rational thought and resolve to change our circumstances.
I love my children, but I don't really want to talk about them. I'm not that much of a freakish middle-aged mother, I'm just very lucky, and there isn't much more to say. I'd like not to be constantly expected to be a spokesman for things that are part of the natural rhythm of a woman's life.
In my child's-eye view, whenever I was exposed to pain, it meant that my mother had let me down.
We're naturally programmed to endure a muddle of emotions as we leave childhood behind.
Fridays are always movie night at our flat in Kensington, West London.
Saturday and Sunday mornings are the only time the children are allowed to turn on the television.
I have had demanding jobs since I was 18 years old. I have had two sick days in all my working life.
I feel lucky that I had my children late. Not that I would advise it in any shape or form. But I know friends who had children when they were young, struggled with feeling trapped. I can honestly say I've never once resented the fact that I couldn't go out because of my kids.
I was raised a socialist by two very socialist parents, and I still feel very animated about socialist principles.
If I ever write a book, it will be called 'Bottle Blonde.'
Men that aren't threatened by opinionated, faintly aggressive women are in a minority.
The idea of exposing the British public to the full breadth of my personality isn't a good one.
I used to routinely turn down things that might compound the impression that I was some kind of vacuous blonde. But now, when I look back, I think I should have done them because I would be very rich - being taken seriously isn't all it's cracked up to be.
I have a producer friend who despairs that I come across as rather frosty and never show the real me, and she might have a point.
Nothing can prepare you for the all-consuming nature of motherhood, and I am very aware of my good fortune, as I spent years fretting about whether I'd ever meet anyone to have a baby with.
First, I was a glacial blonde doing music programmes. Then I was the film kind of sexy bird late at night. It was frustrating like I guess it's frustrating for everyone who is not fully employing their talents.
When a father of a daughter dies, you elevate them. And you sort of deify them.
Television executives only commission something that somebody else has already commissioned that's doing well on another station - they're afraid of expecting an audience to concentrate for longer than three minutes on any particular item.
My parents split up, and a lot of things going on in the outside world made me want to immerse myself in an alternative world.
If I was going to write something, I'd need to stop for three months and just see if I had any thoughts in there.
It's an absolute disgrace that there isn't a books programme on the BBC.
In person, George Clooney lives up to all your expectations.
I'm a control freak. And more so now that I have children.