“i was 27 in a cynical spiral, convinced my work and brain carried less value than my desirability, a rage grew in me at the invisible lectures i was getting all the time about how to be a woman ,how to be a feminist that the world measured a female's worth only by her desirability. Remember i read an article once that said a woman's prime was at age 25 because that was when she was considered her most sexual attractive. Everywhere i looked there were inexplicably naked women on posters on tube adverts for toothpaste dog food someone would have their tits out porn was something that people gorged on rather than dabbled with, we were becoming numbed by it and i was teetering on the edge of a depression. From there i looked down into the abyss and at the bottom of it was fleabag looking up at me in lipstick her attitude her humor her ability to sum a person up and eviscerate them with a single brutal insight is what drove me to write her. She says the unsayable but for me is the truth, albeit bent with cruelty. She was in her custom-tailored coat of pain wrapped-around a broken heart. The bitter author of her own tragedy, it was her fault she couldn't complain she couldn’t blame on anyone she didn't feel sorry for herself and she didn't attribute her flaws to any one event or ordeal that she had experienced. One day she woke up with an audience watching her, so she did the only thing she could, she put on a show.” —— Phoebe Waller Bridge