[On the British Museum:] It was manifestly impossible to read all the books in that huge, gloomy structure, but I made a good try and accumulated a fund of useless information guaranteed to cast a pall over any dinner table.

The secret of my success is that no woman has ever been jealous of me.

Only those who have earned leisure know how to use it profitably.

Good manners - the longer I live the more convinced I am of it - are a priceless insurance against failure and loneliness. And anyone can have them.

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.

[On Hollywood:] I had gone there expecting to see parties that reflected the stock-in-trade of the movies - glamour. Instead, I found the same attitude toward parties that European peasants had for baths. It was something to be done methodically every Saturday night.

Cocktails are society's most enduring invention!