"Once you put aside the matter of OH MY GOD THE SLAVERY JESUS LOOK AT ALL THE FREAKING SLAVERY STOP WITH THE SLAVERY, MAN, the core conceit of this book is amazing. It the most famous teen literature ever-Scarlett is 16 when the Civil War kicks off, and what keeps her going through the complete destruction of her family, status and life is her unrequited love for Ashley Wilkes. The idea of that kind of demented fantasy-let's face it, Ashley's a drip-keeping you going through awful years is such a key Teenage Girl Thing. The fuel is mad unrequited love, keeping you going. It inspired both the "Fantasy Love Affairs" chapter in How To Be A Woman, and most of the plot of How To Build A Girl, hahaha."

"For me a favorite movie is a movie that you can watch at any time, and so I would say Gone With the Wind. I think the cool thing about Gone With the Wind… Well, this is what I decided, as I get older and more intelligent, why I like the film — because as a little kid I just loved the love story, and the Civil War was an interesting thing to me — but now it’s that I think it’s really cool to have the heroine of a film be someone that you really just don’t wanna like. You struggle liking her and I think that’s awesome. It is not a happy film. When it ends it’s just so heartbreaking, and I know it’s happening but I just can’t handle it every time."

"Jessica Mitford was part of the legendary English aristocratic Mitford family. Her sisters included the novelist Nancy, Diana, who was imprisoned with her husband Sir Oswald Mosley for being a fascist, Unity, who fell in love with Hitler, and Deborah, who became the Duchess of Devonshire. Jessica was the family communist and eloped with Esmond Romilly, Churchill's nephew, to go and fight in the Spanish Civil War. Some of the best bits of the book are her descriptions of her childhood. Their poor mother, desperate to knock some sense into her unruly girls, would make them sit down each week and write out how they would economize for a family on an income of 200 pounds a year. Every week without fail Nancy would write at the top of her paper, “199 pounds : flowers.”"