Intolerance of mediocrity has been the main prop of my independence.

Seeing unhappiness in the marriage of friends, I was content to have chosen music and laughter as a substitute for a husband.

[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.

Fight fire with fire. If you must have bores, always put them together or at the same table ... bores have an effervescent chemical reaction on one another at a party. They invariably have a marvelous time trading banalities in the absence of competition. Clichés roll trippingly off the tongue like sparkling epigrams and trite observations acquire depth sinking into receptive minds.

Nothing spoils a good party like a genius.

Keep your talent in the dark and you'll never be insulted.

Good manners spring from just one thing - kind impulses.