Sue Townsend Quotes & Sayings

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. — Sue Townsend

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. — Sue Townsend

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

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

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

I am the world's worst diabetic. — Sue Townsend

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

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. — Sue Townsend

I used to think I had nice arms, but I don't even think that anymore. — Sue Townsend

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. — Sue Townsend

Your trouble is, you want to be happy all the time. You're fifty years old -- haven't you realized yet that most of the time most of us just trudge through life? Happy days are few and far between. — Sue Townsend

What's the most important quality a person could have, something that would benefit us all? — Sue Townsend

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

Mrs. Ball has got a daughter who is a writer. I asked her how her daughter qualified to be one. Mrs. Ball said that her daughter was dropped on her head as a child and has been "a bit queer" ever since. — Sue Townsend

we all need to be loved, and we all need to love. — Sue Townsend

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. — Sue Townsend

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? — Sue Townsend

Adrian Mole's diary
Easter
Poor Jesus, it must have been dead awful for him. I wouldn't have the guts to do it myself. — Sue Townsend

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. — Sue Townsend

Remember that conversation is like ping pong. You say something, she says something. Then you respond to something she's just said, then she bats it back. You ask her a question. She replies. Do you get the idea? — Sue Townsend

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

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

I took my sight and mobility for granted. — Sue Townsend

It has just been on the news that a man has been found in the Queen's bedroom. Radio Four said that the man was an intruder and was previously unknown to the Queen. My father said: 'That's her story. — Sue Townsend

The monarchy is finished. It was finished a while ago, but they're still making the corpses dance. — Sue Townsend

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. — Sue Townsend

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

To unlock the heavy outer door and to walk into the hushed interior, with the morning light spilling from the high windows on to the waiting books, gave her such pleasure that she would have worked for nothing. — Sue Townsend

You should only speak when you have something worth saying. — Sue Townsend

She was alone.
She missed him immediately. — Sue Townsend

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. — Sue Townsend

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

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. — Sue Townsend

'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. — Sue Townsend

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. — Sue Townsend

Had a note from Mr Cherry asking me when I can resume my paper round. I sent a note back to say that due to my mother's desertion I am still in a mental state. This is true. I wore odd socks yesterday without knowing it. One was red and one was green. I must pull myself together. I could end up in a lunatic asylum. — Sue Townsend

Live with all of your senses. — Sue Townsend

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. — Sue Townsend

Pauline: "All under-fives are mad Adrian, you used to talk to the moon. You invited it to your birthday party and cried when it didn't turn up."
George: "When it went dark and the moon came up, you ran outside and threw a sausage roll at it! — Sue Townsend

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. — Sue Townsend

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. — Sue Townsend

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. — Sue Townsend

I have a problem. I am an intellectual, but at the same time I am not very clever. — Sue Townsend

I always knew I had no small talk, and now I know I've got no big talk either. — Sue Townsend

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

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

Mrs O'Leary said, 'Tis the child I feel sorry for', and all the people looked up and saw me, so I looked especially sad, I expect the experience will give me a trauma at some stage in the future. I'm all right at the moment, but you never know. — Sue Townsend

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. — Sue Townsend

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. — Sue Townsend

Love is the only thing that keeps me sane ... — Sue Townsend

Nothing was true for long. In time, everything was deconstructed. — Sue Townsend

Just measured my thing. It has grown one centimetre. I might be needing it soon. — Sue Townsend

My grandma let the dog out of the coal shed. She said my mother was cruel to lock it up. The dog was sick on the kitchen floor. My grandma locked it up again. — Sue Townsend

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. — Sue Townsend

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. — Sue Townsend

I have decided to keep a full journal, in the hope that my life will perhaps seem more interesting when it is written down. — Sue Townsend

Eva said, Are you sure that it's my husband, Dr Brian Beaver, she's carrying on with? Only he's not the type.
"He's a man, isn't he?" Said Nicola. — Sue Townsend

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. — Sue Townsend

I couldn't think of anything to say so I kept quiet. I still can't think of anything to say so I am going to sleep. — Sue Townsend

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. — Sue Townsend

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. — Sue Townsend

I used to be the sort of boy who had sand kicked in his face, now I'm the sort of boy who watches somebody else have it kicked in their face — Sue Townsend

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. — Sue Townsend

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

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

said he 'would rather go without'. — Sue Townsend

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

Measured my 'thing'. It was eleven centimetres. — Sue Townsend

Since I learned to read I've used them as a kind of anaesthetic. — Sue Townsend

A. MOLE'S SCONES Ingredients 4 oz flour or metric equivalent 2 oz butter or metric equivalent 2 oz sugar or metric equivalent 1 egg (eggs are still only eggs) Method Beat up all the ingredients. Make a tin greasy, throw it all in. Turn oven to number 5. Wait until scones are higher than they were. Should be 12 minutes, but keep opening oven door every 30 seconds. — Sue Townsend

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

Alexander assured her, 'Eva, none of us know our children. Because they are not us. — Sue Townsend

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

I've always been fascinated by totalitarian regimes. I'm not an admirer of them. — Sue Townsend

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. — Sue Townsend

Personally, nothing would surprise me any more. If my father announced that he was really a Russian agent or my mother ran away with a circus knife thrower, I wouldn't raise an eyebrow. — Sue Townsend

She had always been comforted by confectionery — Sue Townsend

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

I prefer to keep my secrets to myself, to the grave ... and beyond! — Sue Townsend

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

Watching 'The Jeremy Kyle Show' is my guilty pleasure. — Sue Townsend

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. — Sue Townsend

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. — Sue Townsend

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. — Sue Townsend

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? — Sue Townsend

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.' — Sue Townsend

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. — Sue Townsend

My mother is now in the hospital 60 miles away, where they are treating her pneumonia. I refuse to feel guilty. Guilt is a destructive emotion and doesn't fit in with my Life Plan. — Sue Townsend

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. — Sue Townsend

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. — Sue Townsend

Rosie Germaine Mole. — Sue Townsend

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