I've had a lot of books rejected in my time. My first novel, which didn't get published, was, with hindsight, crashingly dull. Helen Fielding More Quotes by Helen Fielding More Quotes From Helen Fielding 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. Helen Fielding tomatoes beef white 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. Helen Fielding panic-attacks comedy book 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. Helen Fielding air winter children Bridget [Jones] was always, at heart, about the gap between how you feel you're expected to be and how you actually are and that gap has only widened. Young people now are entering an uncharted sea, where there's huge pressure to judge yourself on how many Likes or Followers you get on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, rather than the on important things like being kind, honest, resilient, funny and a good friend. Helen Fielding good-friend sea heart Comedy tends to come out of things which are quite painful and serious. Helen Fielding comedy serious painful 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. Helen Fielding diaries writing people No one is thinking about you. They're thinking about themselves, just like you. Helen Fielding thinking-about-you like-you thinking 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. Helen Fielding age people thinking More than two years after Mad About the Boy was published, the [Bridget Jones's Baby: The Diaries ] movie started coming together. I felt better about the material, and found myself writing a letter from Bridget to her son: explaining the original story of how he came to be, from his own Mum. Helen Fielding writing baby son I like you very much. Just as you are. Helen Fielding romantic-love i-like-you movie-love 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. Helen Fielding teenage morning lying You'll never get a boyfriend if you look like you wandered out of Auschwitz. Helen Fielding auschwitz like-you looks I got into my usual obsessive writing frenzy, using all the material I'd worked on for so long and crafting it into a little novel [Bridget Jones's Baby: The Diaries]. Helen Fielding writing baby long 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. Helen Fielding personality culture children 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. Helen Fielding valentine dad stupid It is a truth universally acknowledged that as soon as one part of your life starts looking up, another falls to pieces. Helen Fielding alaska life fall In terms of parenthood, I think the pressure has amped up massively too. Some parents are setting the bar ludicrously high in terms of doing things "right," and seeing children more as products to be perfected than simply children. Helen Fielding parent children thinking I will not get upset over men, but instead be poised and cool ice-queen. Helen Fielding ice-queen queens men Eventually, I manage to cheer Mum up by allowing her to go through my wardrobe and criticize all my clothes. Helen Fielding criticize clothes cheer 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. Helen Fielding hangover new-year thinking
