A lot of meetings are held to arrange when to have meetings. ... Meetings today are usually called conferences to make them sound more significant.

Always be nice to everyone in the firm on the way up. You never know who you may meet on the way down.

Never drink black coffee at lunch; it will keep you awake all afternoon.

it's a good idea to wait a few months before joining anything when you arrive at a village. A bookseller friend who retired to nearby Oxfordshire, and was worried he might be bored, got himself on to every village committee in the first six months, and spent the next ten years extricating himself.

I was so flattered that someone wanted me to write a book, I said I would. It was published in 1969.

Meetings ... are rather like cocktail parties. You don't want to go, but you're cross not to be asked.

People who can write a book usually do.