Top 112 Quotes & Sayings by Mariella Frostrup

Television executives only commission something that somebody else has already commissioned that's doing well on another station - they're afraid of expecting an audience to concentrate for longer than three minutes on any particular item.

Ageing is one of those battles you're not going to win. I'll try to look as good as I can as long as I can. I don't think I'll do cosmetic surgery because I'm a wimp.

Joy acts like a trampoline, everything that touches it bouncing right back off it.

I used to routinely turn down things that might compound the impression that I was some kind of vacuous blonde. But now, when I look back, I think I should have done them because I would be very rich - being taken seriously isn't all it's cracked up to be.

I have had demanding jobs since I was 18 years old. I have had two sick days in all my working life.

I recognise my old self in a lot of the letters I get from single women who are unrealistic about what they want.

Nothing can prepare you for the all-consuming nature of motherhood, and I am very aware of my good fortune, as I spent years fretting about whether I'd ever meet anyone to have a baby with.

When I last looked, there weren't queues of eager guys under 40 hanging outside single ladies' doors begging them to give up work and have their babies. It takes two to tango and the same number, without medical help, to make a child.

Reading a book you are not enjoying is a torture not to be undertaken without a reward. I leave plays at the interval, too!

I couldn't choose a favourite author, but two contemporary writers who have never disappointed me are Tim Winton and Alice Munro.

If I was going to write something, I'd need to stop for three months and just see if I had any thoughts in there.

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

I don't want my daughter to think she has to dress like Beyonce!

Normally, the thin-skinned have an endless array of excuses for why their workaday interactions are so much harder to bear for them than for the rest of us. In the eyes of the self-suffering, they are being victimised, used and always abused, when they're actually experiencing exactly the same body blows as the rest of us.

The sight of parents, children and grandparents all descending on a tented field to enjoy the pleasure of ideas and books renews my faith in humanity.

I hate the thought of my children being glued to a screen. Children only play on computers all day because their parents let them.

If I was a man, I don't know if I'd settle down long before I was 50.

I love physical books, can't bear to throw them away, and am drowning under the weight of my collection, but I do a lot of my work reading now on my iPad.

What an unappealing responsibility that is to lumber any prospective lover with: the need to be a saviour, not simply an equal partner.

In my child's-eye view, whenever I was exposed to pain, it meant that my mother had let me down.

First, I was a glacial blonde doing music programmes. Then I was the film kind of sexy bird late at night. It was frustrating like I guess it's frustrating for everyone who is not fully employing their talents.

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.

I met Jason on a charity walk in 2001, and we got married on a friend's boat in Panama two years later. It was the perfect wedding for two people who'd already been married and who weren't teenagers.

When a father of a daughter dies, you elevate them. And you sort of deify them.

We're naturally programmed to endure a muddle of emotions as we leave childhood behind.

You're allowed to have gravitas when you've got the wrinkles to prove it, but not when you're attractive and younger - or, at least, you have to fight really hard to prove you're capable of productive thought.

I have a very childish attitude to books - a very non-analytic enthusiasm... like Alice falling down the chute.

Saturday and Sunday mornings are the only time the children are allowed to turn on the television.

Fridays are always movie night at our flat in Kensington, West London.

Far too many girls' and women's romantic relationships are formed around a negation of their own worth and attributes rather than a confirmation of them.

I was brought up in the countryside in Ireland and would go bonkers if I couldn't escape the city. I like to wake and hear birds tweeting, not the low drone of traffic.

I was raised a socialist by two very socialist parents, and I still feel very animated about socialist principles.

Whenever the party-girl tag gets attached to my name, it makes me want to snort with derision.

Men that aren't threatened by opinionated, faintly aggressive women are in a minority.

I love my children, but I don't really want to talk about them. I'm not that much of a freakish middle-aged mother, I'm just very lucky, and there isn't much more to say. I'd like not to be constantly expected to be a spokesman for things that are part of the natural rhythm of a woman's life.

Contrary to popular mythology, the best and most durable relationships are based not on vulnerability or passion but on a conjugation of positive attributes, a meeting of mind, body and soul that is all the more powerful as it is not weighed down with neediness and unreasonable expectation.

My parents split up, and a lot of things going on in the outside world made me want to immerse myself in an alternative world.

It's an absolute disgrace that there isn't a books programme on the BBC.

Coming from a broken home, I wanted to be as sure as I could be that my kids would have two parents who will stay together and bring them up.

In person, George Clooney lives up to all your expectations.

Often, those who bruise easily spend too much time thinking about themselves. I'd go so far as to say that oversensitivity is a privilege of the underoccupied. The majority of people don't have the time to lavish care on emotional wounds - they're too busy getting on with living.

Too often we forget that an ideal partner is someone who enhances an already full existence.

There are more than enough people with serious mental issues who really do need professional help without all the other Toms, Dicks and Harriets rushing to the therapist's couch.

I've been accused of riding roughshod over others' emotions, and I admit, when I feel a friend is being over-indulgent, my patience is in short supply.

The great advantage of being human is that we can employ rational thought and resolve to change our circumstances.

You only need to look at Jane Austen to see how crossed wires can become a defining aspect of romantic life. Then again, if the course of true love ran more smoothly, it would have a terribly detrimental effect on our cache of love stories.

The idea of exposing the British public to the full breadth of my personality isn't a good one.

Of course, I'd like to earn Jonathan Ross's money, but I don't have sleepless nights wondering when someone's going to knock on my door with sacks of cash.

I used to go out with someone who was a really great diver, and we used to go to all the great dive spots all over the globe - although I would spend most of my time crying because I was often too scared to go into the water. But once I was in the water, I loved it.

Only those with skin as thick as elephant hide can hope to sail through their teens unscathed by self-doubt and bouts of depression.

Writers want to talk. They can't wait to tell you what they've been thinking. And because they've been in solitude, they've had some fairly decent thoughts.

I'm a control freak. And more so now that I have children.

I have a producer friend who despairs that I come across as rather frosty and never show the real me, and she might have a point.

If I ever write a book, it will be called 'Bottle Blonde.'

Men want children later, but women can't rely on being able to. So I'm all for scientific advances and the help they can give people.

Every friendship goes through ups and downs. Dysfunctional patterns set in; external situations cause internal friction; you grow apart and then bounce back together.

There are many ways to make the most of your time on the planet, and propagation of the species is just one of them. If you're convinced that it's the key to your happiness, there are routes open to you, whether with the help of modern medical science, marrying into a readymade one, or through fostering and adoption.

I would go out with people who really didn't like me very much and then wonder why we weren't getting married!

I feel lucky that I had my children late. Not that I would advise it in any shape or form. But I know friends who had children when they were young, struggled with feeling trapped. I can honestly say I've never once resented the fact that I couldn't go out because of my kids.

In my late teens and early twenties, I thought having children was possibly the most irresponsible thing you could do because I thought that the world was a dreadful place; I thought the sooner we all got off the planet, the better.