The point of the feminist movement wasn't simply to set our underwear on fire and muscle into small spaces in the male-dominated workplace, but to create a world where the contribution of both sexes was equally valued and no one's worth was judged on their take-home salary.

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.

It’s so much easier to count our disadvantages than tot up the mitigating circumstances that generally outweigh the despair.

I wasn’t allowed to be clever when I was young and blonde, but now I am 50 and an old blonde, I am allowed to have gravitas. With wrinkles comes wisdom.

Having a baby is a disaster for your career. I don’t think there’s any sympathy.

For most of us, when our ‘dreams’ – I use the word with reservations – came true, and marriage and motherhood became a reality, the romcoms, like horoscopes, swiftly lost their allure.

Life is rife with frustrations, jealousies and, on occasion, an overwhelming sense of its injustices, but it’s a big mistake to let such negative sentiments rule our lives and dictate choices.

I was told that when you hit forty men stop looking at you. It’s true, until you slip on a mini-skirt.

Placing ‘amicable’ and ‘separation’ together creates an oxymoron – we don’t usually decide to end a partnership until the very sight of our soon-to-be ex fills us with disgust, misery, agony or a combination of all three.

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.