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

“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.”

“Mixed messages are just part and parcel of the romantic terrain, and rather than berate yourself for any crossed wires, you'd do better to work on your future resilience.”

“Girls have a tendency to take responsibility for romantic misinterpretations, when often it's men whose perfectly honed emotional inscrutability makes life more complicated than it should be.”

“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.”

“While the male eye zooms in on a particular element to the exclusion of all else, a woman's gaze flickers from one tedious task to the next, to the point where we can't distinguish between the importance of mopping the kitchen floor and achieving world peace.”

“Like cars, every relationship requires a bit of an occasional service, and fine-tuning should be compulsory.”

“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.”

“Sustaining true friendship is a lot more challenging than we give it credit for.”

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

“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.”