Insane people are always sure they're just fine. It's only the sane people who are willing to admit they're crazy. - Nora Ephron

Stare at me in this faceless way, go mad with desire, and rip my clothes off. It's terrific. In my sex fantasy, nobody ever loves me for my mind. The fantasy of rape — of which mine is in a kind of prepubescent sub-category — is common enough among women and (in mirror image) among men.

I was so tired of seeing these stupid, cheerful books about ageing. One of them even has this whole thing in it about how you are going to have the greatest sex of your life in your sixties and seventies. Which is just garbage.<p>I thought about it and realised that there was one circumstance that you could have the best sex of your life in your sixties and seventies. That would be if you had never had sex until you were 60 or 70.

It struck me that the movies had spent more than half a century saying, "They lived happily ever after" and the following quarter century warning that they'll be lucky to make it through the weekend. Possibly now we are entering a third era, in which the movies will be sounding a note of cautious optimism: You know, it just might work.