A Quote by 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.
I don't know how my parents ever paid for my dance classes when I was little. We even had to line our shoes with newspaper when there were holes in them because we couldn't afford to get them soled.
We all know of course, that we should never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever fiddle around in any way with electrical equipment. NEVER.
When my three children were little, I took them to Rome. On our way to our destination, we went to see the Colosseum and returned to the car to find everything had been stolen. Trying to buy everything for a week, including clothing for three small, very tired children, was a low point in my life.
Sam Cooke had a huge influence on me. He left the gospel field at one point and went into the secular, and he had this huge hit, 'You Send Me.' Irma, my older sister, and I heard 'You Send Me' on the radio while we were driving through the South one night. We had to stop the car. We got out and danced around the car out on the highway.
Just driving I just was in a car on flat ground and I couldn't make it go. Having ticked driving and taken three driving lessons, I just was unable to produce any motion whatsoever under perfectly normal circumstances. I think we've all been busted on driving, and riding.
I started out with nothing in the world but a kind of passion, a driving desire. I don't know where it came from, and I don't know why - or why I have been so stubborn about it that nothing could deflect me. But this thing between me and my writing is the strongest bond I have ever had - stronger than any bond or any engagement with any human being or with any other work I've ever done.
Somewhere along the way, the ability to make terrifying big budget films like 'The Exorcist' or 'The Shining' was lost, and I don't know if we'll ever get it back.
The hardest role that I've ever tried to play was Clara Johnson in 'Light in the Piazza' at Lincoln Center. It was the least fun I've ever had, but the most beautiful experience I've ever had. I could not understand her. I could not put my feet in her shoes. I came home every night, and I was depressed.
Generations of women have sacrificed their lives to become their mothers. But we do not have that luxury any more. The world has changed too much to let us have the lives our mothers had. And we can no longer afford the guilt we feel at not being our mothers. We cannot afford any guilt that pulls us back to the past. We have to grow up, whether we want to or not. We have to stop blaming men and mothers and seize every second of our lives with passion. We can no longer afford to waste our creativity. We cannot afford spiritual laziness.
The biggest shock when I lost it all was the realization that so much of my life had been out of my control. When I started to make the money back, I vowed that it would never happen again. I bought things only when I could afford them. There was no big mortgage, no cars on hire purchase. I remember buying a TR6 sports car for £6,000, and funnily enough it gave me more pleasure than the Porsche ever had.
I was not yet three years old when my mother determined to send one of my elder sisters to learn to read at a school for girls we call the Amigas. Affection, and mischief, caused me to follow her, and when I observed how she was being taught her lessons I was so inflamed with the desire to know how to read, that deceiving - for so I knew it to be - the mistress, I told her that my mother had meant for me to have lessons too. ... I learned so quickly that before my mother knew of it I could already read.
I had interest in acting. I started as a drama major in college. I got to school and said, "What am I going to do with this?" But I didn't know anybody in the business, and it seemed like - I don't know. I had a teacher who said "Less than 1 percent of you will ever make a living being an actor." That was how we opened the semester.
Dawn Steel was the person who told me I could never wear shoes like this! She and Nora Ephron told me 'you can't wear those crappy shoes, nobody would ever take you seriously'. I've been wearing them ever since then!
How to Tell If Shoes Fit: Walking around the shoe store is not going to tell you any more than test-driving a car around a showroom. And those little mirrors? That's so you can tell how your cat is going to like your shoes. The real way to tell how shoes fit is how badly you want them.
I would rather die than ever see you suffering this way. I don't want you or any child I ever have or any woman I ever love to go through or feel what you're going through, but it's happened and I don't know what to do.
Everything I ever learnt as a small boy came from my father, and I never found anything he ever told me to be wrong or worthless. The simple lessons he taught me are as sharp and clear in my mind as if I had heard them only yesterday.
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