Anatomize the character of a successful hostess and the knife will lay bare the fact that she owes her position to one of three things: either she is liked, or she is feared, or she is important.

Someone has said that life itself is a party: you join after it's started and you leave before it's finished.

Under pressure, people admit to murder, setting fire to the village church or robbing a bank, but never to being bores.

People who have escaped from poverty are like old soldiers. In later years they recount the little, amusing incidents that happened infrequently, and conveniently forget the long, unrelieved stretches of misery and boredom.

Serve the dinner backward, do anything - but for goodness sake, do something weird.

Etiquette-a fancy word for simple kindness.

don't try for wit. Settle for humor. You'll last longer.