When the middle classes get passionate about politics, they're arguing about their treats—their tax breaks and their investments. When the poor get passionate about politics, they're fighting for their lives. 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, more 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. Furthermore, we can't bear it. Furthermore, we don't want to be reminded of our past, because it was awful: dying in means, 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 instant, hot, fast treats, to pep us up: sugar, a cigarette, a new fast song on the radio. You must never, never forget when you talk to someone poor, that it takes ten times the effort to get anywhere from a bad post code. It's a miracle when someone from a bad post code gets anywhere, son. A miracle they do anything at all.

— Caitlin Moran

When the subject turns to abortion, cosmetic intervention, birth, motherhood, sex, love, work, misogyny, fear, or just how you feel in your own skin, women still won’t often tell the truth to each other unless they are very, very drunk. Perhaps the endlessly reported rise in female binge-drinking is simply modern women’s attempt to communicate with each other. Or maybe it is because Sincere is so very delicious. To be honest, I’ll take bets on either.

— Caitlin Moran

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.

— Caitlin Moran

Within living memory of this country, men could rape their wives: women were not seen as a separate sexual entity, with the right of refusal.

— Caitlin Moran

Women are always being asked when they're going to have children. It's a question they're asking even more often.

— Caitlin Moran

Women's bodies do not give up their babies so easily, and so silently, is the message. The heart will always remember.

— Caitlin Moran

Women wear heels because they think they make their legs look thinner.

— Caitlin Moran

You can always tell when a woman is with the wrong man, because she has so much to say about the fact that nothing's happening.

— Caitlin Moran

You can tell whether some misogynistic societal pressure is being exerted on women by calmly inquiring, ‘And are the men doing this, as well?’ If they aren’t, chances are you’re dealing with what we strident feminists refer to as ‘some total fucking bullshit’.

— Caitlin Moran

Your hard-won triumphs can be wholly negated if you live in a climate where your victories are seen as threatening, incorrect, distasteful, or -- most crucially of all, for a teenage girl -- simply uncool. Few girls would choose to be right -- right, down into their clever, brilliant bones -- but lonely.

— Caitlin Moran