I was a Republican until I got to New York and had to live on $18 a week. It was then that I became a Democrat.

In my generation, except for a few people who'd gone into banking or nursing or something like that, middle-class women didn't have careers. You were to marry and have children and be a nice mother. You didn't go out and do anything. I found that I got restless.

Find something you're passionate about and keep tremendously interested in it.

I admired the English immensely for all that they had endured, and they were certainly honorable, and stopped their cars for pedestrians, and called you “sir” and “madam,” and so on. But after a week there, I began to feel wild. It was those ruddy English faces, so held in by duty, the sense of “what is done” and “what is not done,” and always swigging tea and chirping, that made me want to scream like a hyena

You don't have to cook fancy or complicated masterpieces - just good food from fresh ingredients.

Was it a sign of Creeping Decrepitude?

Food, like the people who eat it, can be stimulated by wine or spirits. And, as with people, it can also be spoiled.