Sue Townsend quotes

Sue Townsend was an English novelist best known for creating the iconic Adrian Mole series. Her humorous and insightful works captured the anxieties and wit of everyday British life. She became one of the best-loved comic writers of her generation. Here are 21 of her quotes:

I took my sight and mobility for granted.

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

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

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

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

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

Sue Townsend

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

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 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'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 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

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

I am the world's worst diabetic.

Sue Townsend

Watching 'The Jeremy Kyle Show' is my guilty pleasure.

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

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

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

Sue Townsend

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

Sue Townsend