Snobbishness, superiority, condescension.

People who are proud of their ignorance.

Complaining about the weather, because there’s nothing you can do about it. There’s no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing.

People who feed off of their misery. The whiners and complainers.

When I was 17 I took on a class of six-year-olds for a week. When the Angelus rang at noon, they stood up in silence and I realised I was supposed to recite the prayer, which I did not know. I said: “There will be no Angelus today because of that child fidgeting at the back.”

A few weeks ago, we spent a long weekend going around West Cork, and I was so happy it amazed me. My husband doesn’t always make me happy around the house, but add a road and some scenery and the combination can be very powerful.

When Kellie Harrington won gold for Ireland in the boxing at the Paris Olympics I pumped out the briny.

When I was seven I wanted to be a nun. When I was eight, I wanted to be a boy so that I could be anything I wanted. Also, of course, I wanted to be Samantha in Bewitched.

Catherine Corless, who spent her own money to secure birth certificates for the unrecorded dead children of the Tuam mother and baby home.

Remember, if you sit at your desk for 15 or 20 years, every day, not ­counting weekends, it changes you. It just does. It may not improve your temper, but it fixes something else. It makes you more free.