The secret of good health and happiness is to have rather small illnesses throughout your life which you can rely on to stop you doing anything you don't want to do.

The shelf life of the modern hardback writer is somewhere between the milk and the yoghurt.

I suppose true sexual equality will come when a general called Anthea is found having an unwise lunch with a young, unreliable model from Spain.

The greatest horrors of our world are committed by people who are totally sincere.

What obsesses a writer starting out on a lifetime's work is the panic-stricken search for a voice of his own.

To escape jury duty in England, wear a bowler hat and carry a copy of the Daily telegraph.

Writing about the indignities of old age: the daunting stairway to the restaurant restroom, the benefits of a wheelchair in airports and its disadvantages at cocktail parties, giving the user what he described as a child's-eye view of the party and a crotch-level view of the guests. Dying is a matter of slapstick and pratfalls. The aging process is not gradual or gentle. It rushes up, pushes you over and runs off laughing. No one should grow old who isn't ready to appear ridiculous.