Caitlin Moran

I love puffins. They are small, round gothic birds, and their babies are called pufflings.

Most women I know love the idea of fashion, but the practicalities that go with it are just distressing.

The idea of not being able to control my own fertility genuinely terrifies me. That one mistake might change your life. That everything I am, and do, could be ended by the repeal of laws our mothers fought so hard for, that women had waited for the entire span of humanity to come about.

Telly never has any smart, amusing intellectuals living on a council estate.

In the early '90s, it was grunge; everybody was fully clothed. Alanis Morissette was one of the biggest artists in the world, never wore makeup, wearing Doc Marten boots, and then the Spice Girls turn up, and suddenly it all looks a bit burlesque; suddenly they're the biggest band in the world.

Watching 'Girls' has just given me renewed courage.

I once went into a meeting, and every woman put her a million-pound bag on the table. Then I'm there with my tote bag and anorak. And I'm like, well, I'm still the most important person in the room right now.

When I learned that flour pound for pound has as many calories as sugar, and that when eating pasta you're basically eating cake, I was size 23, and my neck was restricting my breathing, and so I got on a microbiotic diet and got myself an exercise bike.

Simultaneously, my two biggest heroes are Susan Sontag and Morticia Addams from 'The Addams Family.'

My parents were hippies. I'm the eldest of eight children.

The first thing to improve society is not banning abortion, but making sure that everyone who had a child is in the best position to be able to rear it.

Every woman who chooses - joyfully, thoughtfully, calmly, of their own free will and desire - not to have a child does womankind a massive favour in the long term.