It takes that je ne sais quoi which we call sophistication for a woman to be magnificent in a drawing-room when her faculties have departed but she herself has not yet gone home.

History is replete with proofs, from Cato the Elder to Kennedy the Younger, that if you scratch a statesman you find an actor, but it is becoming harder and harder, in our time, to tell government from show business.

The past is an old armchair in the attic, the present an ominous ticking sound, and the future is anybody's guess.

I have the reputation for having read all of Henry James. Which would argue a misspent youth and middle age.

Comedy has ceased to be a challenge to the mental processes. It has become a therapy of relaxation, a kind of tranquilizing drug.

I do not have a psychiatrist and I do not want one, for the simple reason that if he listened to me long enough, he might become disturbed.

With sixty staring me in the face, I have developed inflammation of the sentence structure and definite hardening of the paragraphs.