Caitlin Moran

Politics will always mean more to the poor. Always. That's why we strike and march, and despair when our young say they won't vote. That's why the poor are seen as more vital, and animalistic. No classical music for us - no walking around National Trust properties or buying reclaimed flooring. We don't have nostalgia. We don't do yesterday. We can't bear it. We don't want to be reminded of our past, because it was awful: dying in mines and slums without literacy or the vote. Without dignity. It was all so desperate then. That's why the present and the future is for the poor - that's the place in time for us: surviving now, hoping for better later. We live now - for our own instant hot, fast treats, to pep us up: sugar, a cigarette, a new fast song on the radio.

Galaxies of nothing are going onin her eyes.

Just resolve to shine, constantly and steadily, like a warm lamp in the corner, and people will want to move towards you in order to feel happy, and to read things more clearly. You will be bright and constant in a world of dark and flux, and this will save you the anxiety of other, ultimately less satisfying things like __eing cool_, __eing more successful than everyone else_ and __eing very thin_.

Because I haven't yet learned the simplest and most important thing of all: the world is difficult, and we are all breakable. So just be kind.

In the street below, a posh-looking drunk man is reading the card of a prostitute, Blue-Tacked up by a doorbell. He__ examining it with all the forensic care I presume he puts into reading a wine list.__hat are you looking for?_ I ask him, in my head. __hat woman will go best with your main course of terrible, horny loneliness?__ speculate, briefly, on how different the world would be if it were run by women. In that world, if you were a lonely, horny woman _ as I am. As I always am _ you__ see Blu-tacked postcards by Soho doorways that read, __ice man in cardigan, 24, will talk to you about The Smiths whilst making you cheese-on-toast + come to parties with you. Apply within.

And every book, you find, has its own social group--friends of its own it wants to introduce you to, like a party in the library that need never, ever end.

You wanted to become a doctor to help people and feel better at the end of your job, I think, watching them, as the nurse takes my hand. But I don't think you do feel better at the end of the day. You look like humans have constantly disappointed you.

The scabs feel like I have a message on my arm. Something that needs to be read, urgently, by someone. It was only years later that I realized the person I had written that message to- the person who wasn't listening- was me. I was the one who should have been staring at that arm, and working out what the red hieroglyphics meant. Had I translated them, I would have realized those red lines read: 'Never feel this bad again. Never come back to this place, where only a knife will do. Live a gentle and kind life. Don't do things that make you want to hurt yourself. Whatever you do, every day, remember this- then steer away from here.

When young people are cynical, and snarky, they shoot down their own future. When you keep saying "No," all that's left is what other people said "Yes" to before you were born. Really, "No" is no choice at all.

I have a rule of thumb that allows me to judge, when times is pressing and one needs to make a snap judgment, whether or not some sexist bullshit is afoot. Obviously, it__ not 100% infallible but by and large it definitely points you in the right direction and it's asking this question; are the men doing it? Are the men worrying about this as well? Is this taking up the men__ time? Are the men told not to do this, as it's letting the side down? Are the men having to write bloody books about this exasperating retarded, time-wasting, bullshit? Is this making Jeremy Clarkson feel insecure?Almost always the answer is no. The boys are not being told they have to be a certain way, they are just getting on with stuff.

Feminism has had exactly the same problem that "political correctness" has had: people keep using the phrase without really knowing what it means.

..in the 21st century, wedon__ need to march against size zero models, risible pornography,lap-dancing clubs and Botox. We don__ need to riot, or go on hungerstrike. There__ no need to throw ourselves under a horse, or even adonkey. We just need to look it in the eye, squarely, for a minute,and then start laughing at it. We look hot when we laugh. Peoplefancy us when they observe us giving out relaxed, earthy chuckles.

...it's technically impossible for a woman to argue against feminism. Without feminism you wouldn't be allowed to have a debate on a woman's place in society. You'd be too busy giving birth on the kitchen floor -- biting down on a wooden spoon, so as not to disturb the men's card game -- before going back to hoeing the rutabaga field.

...for all that people have tried to abuse it and disown it. "feminism" is still the word we need. No other word will do. And let's face it, there has been no other word, save "Girl Power" -- which makes you sound like you're into some branch of Scientology owned by Geri Halliwell. That "Girl Power" has been the sole rival to the word "feminism" in the last 50 years is a cause for much sorrow on behalf of the women. After all, P. Diddy has had four different names, and he's just one man.

The people around you are mirrors, I think. You see yourself reflected in their eyes. If the mirror is true, and smooth, you see your true self. That__ how you learn who you are.

A self-made man" - not of woman born but alchemized, through sheer force of will, by the man himself. This is what I want to be. I want to be a self-made woman. I want to conjure myself out of every sparkling, fast moving thing I can see. I want to be the creator of myself. I'm going to begat myself

hearing women singing about themselves - rather than men singing about women - makes everything seem wonderfully clear, and possible

In the 20th century- an age in thrall to the new- women turn out to be the newest thing of all; still packed up in cellophane, still folded up in the box, having played dead for the length of history. But now we are the new species!We are the tulip- America- the Hula Hoop- the moon shot- cocaine! Everything we do is going to be, implicitly,amazing.