That amenity which the French have developed into a great art . . . conversation.

It's not that I don't want to be a beauty, that I don't yearn to be dripping with glamour. It's just that I can't see how any woman can find time to do to herself all the things that must apparently be done to make herself beautiful and, having once done them, how anyone without the strength of mind of a foreign missionary can keep up such a regime.

The French have no such expression as 'killing time.' In their more philosophical vocabulary the term is 'passing time,' which means savoring all moments of it each to his individual enjoyment. While we battle with time, they relax with tempo.

mosquitoes were using my ankles as filling stations.

That amenity which the French have developed into a great art . . . conversation.

There are compensations for growing older. One is the realization that to be sporting isn't at all necessary. It is a great relief to reach this stage of wisdom.

We all have our little illusions about our own mental abilities.