Shirley Conran

"Life’s too short to stuff a mushroom."

"I came back from a visit to my mother in Canada to find a note on the mantelpiece from Kevin [O'Sullivan]. It said: "By the time you read this I will be in Moscow. My wedding ring is in the waste-paper basket where it belongs." Kevin didn't divorce me, he deserted me. We divorced by mutual consent."

"[On her dislike of Christmas cards: M]y self-esteem isn't based on how many shepherds and robins I've got perched on the sideboard."

"Fifty Shades of Grey is so infantile [...] More like baby porn. You have to wait until page 200 for any sex at all. She doesn’t get her bottom spanked until page 400. The writing is jerky: it needed a good edit."

"[On her marriage to (Sir) Terence Conran in 1955] It was just criticise, criticise, criticise, from morning to night. It was very wearing. I said at one point, "What I don’t understand is why you want me to stay." He had a good think and then said, "Because you are a very valuable business asset, because you make me laugh and because I got used to you, like my old school rug." What I wanted him to say, of course, was, "I love you." So I walked out."

"Canongate have been wonderful. They've allowed me to write the word 'masturbation' back into the copy. When Lace was first published, Michael Korda [the publishing giant who was Conran's editor] said the world wasn't ready for it. We had to use a polite euphemism. But now we have the verb."

"[On her divorce from (Sir) Terence Conran in 1962] I was 30. My mother said, "Well, perhaps it's as well your father's dead because otherwise you couldn't have got divorced." I gave her an astounded look, but that's how it was then."

"[On being motivated to leave the marriage] I went to St Paul's [the independent school in west London]. That was very important. The mistresses were all unmarried – their fiancees had all died on the Somme – and they were quietly subversive. Paulinas are known for having their own views. It would be very difficult for a Paulina not to expect equality in marriage. So when you get married, and find it's not so, it's a shock."

"[The anonymous (male) interviewer recently read Lace with pleasure] Oh really? My ex-husband paid his lawyer to read it, to check whether there was anything to sue me about. A lovely job for £250 an hour. ["Did he find anything?"] Well Terence didn’t sue me [...] But I don’t think his lawyer did a very good job."

"[On turning down a fourth marriage at the age of 80] He might want to watch football on a Saturday afternoon. I might not be able to eat baked beans in bed at 3am if I want to."