Good manners spring from just one thing - kind impulses.

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

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.

Laugh at yourself first, before anyone else can.

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

[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.

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