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. Julie Burchill on friendship
I've never been nostalgic, personally or politically - if the past was so great, how come it's history? Julie Burchill on history
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. Julie Burchill on jealousy
Mind you, I've always been a very off-message type of fat broad one who gladly admits she reached the size she is now solely through lack of discipline and love of pleasure, and who rather despises people (except those with proven medical conditions) who pretend that it is generally otherwise. Julie Burchill on medical
A good part - and definitely the most fun part - of being a feminist is about frightening men. Julie Burchill on men
From paying off friends' tax bills to rescuing stray dogs and stuffing £20 notes into the hands of homeless people, I can't get rid of my money fast enough. Julie Burchill on money
As a child, I wanted only two things - to be left alone to read my library books, and to get away from my provincial hometown and go to London to be a writer. And I always knew that when I got there, I wanted to make loads of money. Julie Burchill on money
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. Julie Burchill on money
The money I pay for my cultural experiences came willingly from my own pocket - they were not the result of bread being removed from the mouths of the poor so that Miss Thing here could mince off to the circus smelling of roses. Julie Burchill on money
Being a monarchist - saying that one small group is born more worthy of respect than another - is just as warped and strange as being a racist. Julie Burchill on respect
I am firmly of the opinion that women who make a lot of effort to hang onto their looks in middle age (unless they are beauties, entertainers or prostitutes) are rather sad, as one should surely have something more substantial to recommend one by this time, such as kindness or cleverness. Julie Burchill on sad
No matter how old and glorious the models, sad indeed is the woman who sees fashion as a means of self-expression rather than an agent of social control. Julie Burchill on sad
Tears are sometimes an inappropriate response to death. When a life has been lived completely honestly, completely successfully, or just completely, the correct response to death's perfect punctuation mark is a smile. Julie Burchill on smile
It's very hard to imagine the phrase 'consumer society' used so cheerfully, and interpreted so enthusiastically, in England. Julie Burchill on society
As I get older I think, contrary to modern assumption but in line with the old Lerner and Lowe song, that it would actually benefit both them and society if - to quote Professor Higgins - a woman could be more like a man. Julie Burchill on society
As a precocious teen I dreamed of being Graham Greene. Well, as it turned out, I never wrote a great novel, sadly, and I never converted to Catholicism, happily, but I did do one thing he did. That is, in middle age I moved to a seaside town and got into a right barney with the local powers-that-be. Julie Burchill on teen
The truth of the matter is, beauty is a specific thing, rare and fleeting. Some of us have it in our teens, 20s and 30s and then lose it most of us have it not at all. And that's perfectly okay. But lying to yourself that you have it when you don't seems to me simple-minded at best and psychotic at worst. Julie Burchill on truth
There's something brave and touching about game girls of all ages keeping themselves smart in hard times - one thinks of those wonderful women during World War II drawing stocking seams in eyebrow pencil up the back of legs stained with gravy browning because nylons were so hard to get hold of. Julie Burchill on war
It's received wisdom that the English are uniquely child-unfriendly. Julie Burchill on wisdom
The freedom that women were supposed to have found in the Sixties largely boiled down to easy contraception and abortion things to make life easier for men, in fact. Julie Burchill on women