Helen Fielding Quotations

I come from Yorkshire in England where we like to eat chip sandwiches - white bread, butter, tomato ketchup and big fat french fries cooked in beef dripping.

Dieting on New Year's Day isn't a good idea as you can't eat rationally but really need to be free to consume whatever is necessary, moment by moment, in order to ease your hangover. I think it would be much more sensible if resolutions began generally on January the second.

I was writing an earnest novel about cruises in the Caribbean and I just started writing 'Bridget Jones' to get some money, to finance this earnest work, and then I chucked it out.

It's rather fun writing a female spy, because she has so much more kit. Bond never carried a hair dryer or a makeup bag. And he certainly didn't wear an uplift bra.

I've had a lot of books rejected in my time. My first novel, which didn't get published, was, with hindsight, crashingly dull.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that as soon as one part of your life starts looking up, another falls to pieces.

I always market research my books before I hand them in by showing them to five or six close friends who I trust to be honest with me, so they are very heavily re-written already.

I think that when you're writing fiction what you're doing is reflecting life as you see it, and putting down how you think and how other people think, and the sort of confusions that you don't normally like to admit to.

The whole point of diaries is that other people find them and read what you've put. I did once take to writing my inner thoughts on the computer at the end of other things I was writing and ended up faxing four pages of hideous stuff to my accountant so I don't do that now.

There are so many images pushed at women and so many ideas of what you're supposed to be. I think there's too much of this superwoman, this woman with a bottom like two billiard balls. There's no real celebration of just being a person.

If we can't have comedy books written about aspects of womanhood without going into a panic attack about it, then we haven't got very far at being equal.

Comedy tends to come out of things which are quite painful and serious.

I certainly think I'll end up writing about America in some form. I've taken plenty of notes. I like America very much.

Nobody wants to be racist and I think that most people aren't.

Women today are bombarded with so many messages, like we should have Naomi Campbell's body and Madeleine Albright's career.

I think it is a kind of subject matter that needed exploring ... the identity of the single woman had not caught up with what was happening. Which was that a lot of perfectly attractive, intelligent, nice, normal girls in their 30s had decided not to get married for very good reasons. And they were paralyzed somewhere between the Cosmo girls, you know with the good life and their own flat and car and independence and lots of fun, and haunted by this horrible image of ... the tragic spinster who ends up dying alone and being found three weeks later half-eaten by a dog.

I think something had gone a bit wrong with the translation, because one of the reviewers said to me 'Bridget Jones's Diary' was a 'transcendental study of existential despair.' So, naturally, I was delighted that someone had at last recognized how profound I was,

I think that almost accidentally I hit on something that is quite fundamental to women, which is this gap between how we feel we're expected to be and how we actually are,

I said 'no,' because I didn't want to expose myself in that way. But I said, 'But I will do this character if you want.' And they said 'Great!' And of course now everyone thinks it is me anyway.

I wasn't involved in the casting at that state, but I think it was a good idea. I think she's one of those actresses where you can dress her up or dress her down. She can be very beautiful or very ordinary- looking and I think that's really important with Bridget. And I've heard she's very funny, but I've never met her.

I've only done some work on (the screenplay), and I find it very difficult, actually. Because you can really get away with murder in a book. You write 'round so many things, you can describe people, you can explain things. A screenplay is actually very short. It is only, like, 110 pages long and it's very spread out and every line has to do so many jobs, so I found it really hard.

I like L.A. It's like a mini break. For a writer, it's hilarious. Like the food. Where I come from, we eat chip sandwiches: white bread, butter, tomato catsup and big fat french fries. It's delicious. Here, you order a creme caramel and the waiter says, 'You know, that contains dairy.'

I recently bought a house in L.A., and I was so pleased with myself. I thought I had arrived and I was going to be glamorous and live in Hollywood and it was going to be marvelous. Cut to six weeks later. The first time it rained the ceiling collapsed,

I do think New Year's resolutions can't technically be expected to begin on New Year's Day, don't you? Since, because it's an extension of New Year's Eve, smokers are already on a smoking roll and cannot be expected to stop abruptly on the stroke of midnight with so much nicotine in the system. Also dieting on New Year's Day isn't a good idea as you can't eat rationally but really need to be free to consume whatever is necessary, moment by moment, in order to ease your hangover. I think it would be much more sensible if resolutions began generally on January the second

Am I seeing the characters of the original diary or the characters from the film?

I'm no good at anything. Not men. Not social skills. Not work. Nothing.

..we were always taught, instead of waiting to be swept off our feet, to 'expect little, forgive much'.

Oh God. valentine's Day tomorrow. Why? Why? Why is (the) entire world geared to make people not involved in romance feel stupid when everyone knows romance does not work anyway. Look at (the) royal family. Look at Mum and Dad.

You'll never get a boyfriend if you look like you wandered out of Auschwitz.

I looked at him nonplussed. I realized that I have spent so many years being on a diet that the idea that you might actually need calories to survive has been completely wiped out of my consciousness. Have reached point where believe nutritional idea is to eat nothing at all, and that the only reason people eat is because they are so greedy they cannot stop themselves from breaking out and ruining their diets.

Oh God, what's wrong with me? Why does nothing ever work out?

As women glide from their twenties to thirties, Shazzer argues, the balance of power subtly shifts. Even the most outrageous minxes lose their nerve, wrestling with the first twinges of existential angst: fears of dying alone and being found three weeks later half-eaten by an Alsatian.

Eventually, I manage to cheer Mum up by allowing her to go through my wardrobe and criticize all my clothes...

Don't say 'what,' say 'pardon,' darling, and do as your mother tells you.

9p.m. My flat. Feel very strange and empty. Is all very well thinking everything is going to be different when you come back but then it is all the same. Suppose I have to make it different. But what am I going to do with my life? I know. Will eat some cheese.

You see, things being good has nothing to do with how you feel outside, it is all to do with how you are inside.

No one is thinking about you. They're thinking about themselves, just like you.

I hate Christmas. Everything is designed for families, romance, warmth, emotion and presents, and if you have no boyfriend, no money, your mother is going out with a missing Portuguese criminal and your friends don't want to be your friend anymore, it makes you want to emigrate to a vicious Muslim regime, where at least all the women are treated like social outcasts. Anyway, I don't care. I am going to quietly read a book all weekend and listen to classical music.

Singletons should not have to explain themselves all the time but should have an accepted status — like geisha girls do

One minute you're closer to someone than anyone in the whole world, next minute they need only to say the words 'time apart', 'serious talk' or 'maybe you...' and you're never going to see them again and will have to spend the next six months having imaginary conversations in which they beg to come back, and bursting into tears at the sight of their toothbrush.

Oh, God, I'm so lonely. An entire weekend streching ahead with no one to love or have fun with. Anyway, I don't care. I've got a lovely steamed ginger pudding from M&S to put in the microwave.

I realize it has become too easy to find a diet to fit in with whatever you happen to feel like eating and that diets are not there to be picked and mixed but picked and stuck to, which is exactly what I shall begin to do once I've eaten this chocolate croissant.

Valentine's Day purely commercial, cynical enterprise, anyway. Matter of supreme indifference to me.

I will not Drink more than fourteen alcohol units a week.

I like L.A. It's like a mini break. For a writer, it's hilarious. Like the food. Where I come from, we eat chip sandwiches: white bread, butter, tomato catsup and big fat french fries. It's delicious. Here, you order a creme caramel and the waiter says, 'You know, that contains dairy.

It's amazing how much time and money can be saved in the world of dating by close attention to detail. A white sock here, a pair of red braces there, a gray slip-on shoe, a swastika, are as often as not all one needs to tell you there's no point in writing down phone numbers and forking out for expensive lunches because it's never going to be a runner.

My books have all generated controversy.

I will not sulk about having no boyfriend, but develop inner poise and authority and sense of self as woman of substance, complete without boyfriend, as best way to obtain boyfriend.

Exes should never, never go out with or marry other people but should remain celibate to the end of their days in order to provide you with a mental fallback position.

In the end there is nothing more unattractive to men than radical feminism.

I am brave, though I am alone.

It is horrid to smirk.

I am a child of Cosmopolitan culture, have been traumatized by supermodels and too many quizzes and know that neither my personality nor my body is up to it if left to its own devices. I can't take the pressure.

When someone leaves you, apart from missing them, apart from the fact that the whole little world you've created together collapses, and that everything you see or do reminds you of them, the worst is the thought that they tried you out and, in the end, the whole sum of parts adds up to you got stamped REJECT by the one you love. How can you not be left with the personal confidence of a passed over British Rail sandwich?

Quite quickly I grew less deranged. I had begun the process of calming down, assimilating and compromising, which is necessary to live comfortably in the world as it is, and probably is why its imbalance never changes. But underneath, my idea of life was completely altered.

But if you are single the last thing you want is your best friend forming a functional relationship with somebody else.

I will not get upset over men, but instead be poised and cool ice-queen.

If you ask where a relationship is going too often the question has a habit of turning into where the relationship went. Unfortunately, however, God has given women an inbuilt irresistible urge to insist on knowing where their relationships are going, and to force their partners to discuss the matter at length whenever they are late for something.

One must not live one's life through men but must be complete on oneself as a woman of substance.

Sink into morbid, cynical reflection on how much romantic heartbreak is to do with ego and miffed pride rather than actual loss

It seems wrong and unfair that Christmas, with its stressful and unmanageable financial and emotional challenges, should first be forced upon one wholly against one's will, then rudely snatched away just when one is starting to get into it. Was really beginning to enjoy the feeling that normal service was suspended and it was OK to lie in bed as long as you want, put anything you fancy into your mouth, and drink alcohol whenever it should chance to pass your way, even in the mornings. Now suddenly we are all supposed to snap into self-discipline like lean teenage greyhounds.

It is proved by surveys that happiness does not come from love, wealth, or power but the pursuit of attainable goals.

Tom has a theory that homosexuals and single women in their thirties have natural bonding: both being accustomed to disappointing their parents and being treated as freaks by society.

Reminded of favorite poem by Wendy Cope which goes: At Christmas little children sing and merry bells jingle. The cold winter air makes our hands and faces tingle. And happy families go to church and cheerily they mingle, And the whole business is unbelievably dreadful if you're single.

The corruption of the good by the belief in their own infallible goodnes is the most bloody dangerous pitfall in the human spectrum. Once you have conquered all your sins, pride is the one which will conquer you. A man starts off deciding he is a good man because he makes good decisions. Next thing, he's convinced that whatever decision he makes must be good because he's a good man. Most of the wars in the world are caused by people who think they have god on their side. Always stick with people who know they are flawed and ridiculous.

I made my excuses and left, thinking, really, after a certain age, people are just going to do what they're going to do and you're either going to accept them as they are or you're not.

When someone loves you it's like having a blanket all round your heart...

It occurred to me that if Africa needed us, sometimes we needed Africa a great deal more.

It struck me as pretty ridiculous to be called Mr. Darcy and to stand on your own looking snooty at a party. It's like being called Heathcliff and insisting on spending the entire evening in the garden, shouting "Cathy" and banging your head against a tree.

I like you very much. Just as you are." Mark Darcy, Bridget Jones

Can officially confirm that the way to a man's heart these days is not through beauty, food, sex, or alluringness of character, but merely the ability to seem not very interested in him.