Top 35 Sue Townsend Quotes

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.

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

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

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

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

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’ve always been fascinated by totalitarian regimes. I’m not an admirer of them.

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

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.

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 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.’

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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 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 prefer to keep my secrets to myself, to the grave… and beyond!

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 used to think I had nice arms, but I don’t even think that anymore.

Sometimes I rant, in a comical way, about how the gods give with one hand and take with the other.

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

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.

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

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

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

The monarchy is finished. It was finished a while ago, but they’re still making the corpses dance.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.