Literary Birthday – 19 February – Helen Fielding

Happy Birthday, Helen Fielding, born 19 February 1958.

10 Quotes

1. It is a truth universally acknowledged that when one part of your life starts going okay, another falls spectacularly to pieces.
2. Comedy tends to come out of things which are quite painful and serious.
3. One must not live one’s life through men but must be complete on oneself as a woman of substance.
4. Exes should never, never go out with or marry other people but should remain celibate to the end of their days in order to provide you with a mental fallback position.
5. It is proved by surveys that happiness does not come from love, wealth, or power but the pursuit of attainable goals.
6. I’ve had a lot of books rejected in my time. My first novel, which didn’t get published, was, with hindsight, crashingly dull.
7. 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.
8. You only get one life. I’ve just made a decision to change things a bit and spend what’s left of mine looking after me for a change.
9. I think that when you’re writing fiction what you’re doing is reflecting life as you see it, and putting down how you think and how other people think, and the sort of confusions that you don’t normally like to admit to.
10. When someone loves you it’s like having a blanket all round your heart.

Helen Fielding is an English novelist and screenwriter, best known as the creator of the fictional character Bridget Jones. Bridget Jones’s Diary, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, and Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy have been published in 40 countries and sold more than 15 million copies.

by Amanda Patterson

Are you interested in more authors’ birthdays? Please click here: Literary Birthday Calendar