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.

What is a bore? Maxwell definition: a vacuum cleaner of society, sucking up everything and giving nothing. How do you spot one? Bores are always anxious to be seen talking to you.

Cocktails are society's most enduring invention!

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

[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.

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

Nothing spoils a good party like a genius.