the essence of vulgarity seemed to lie in the pretence at being or the attempt to be, something that one really was not, with the resulting lack of ease and dignity and taste.

Advertising ... is a parasitic activity; it forces goods for which there is no real need or demand on a foolish or even a reluctant public, always by appealing to their lower instincts.

advertising confuses values ... By appealing either to fear, or to vanity, or to covetousness, it very skillfully insinuates false values.

I do disapprove of the modern attitude that you can't do the simplest thing, like dying or being born, in your own house.

In any relationship we feel an unconscious need to create, as it were, a new picture, a new edition of ourselves to present to the fresh person who claims our interests; for them, we in a strange sense wish to, and do, start life anew.

Americans ... attach such a fantastic importance to their baths and plumbing and gadgets of all sorts. They talk as if people could hardly be human beings without all that; we in Europe are beginning to wonder if people can be human beings with it.

we should be careful not to let machinery swamp life. That we should be sure, when we are confronted with a fresh mechanical contrivance, that we are not losing more than we gain by adopting it.