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

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

[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.

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.

[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.

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

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