Hats divide generally into three classes: offensive hats, defensive hats, and shrapnel.

[On Malcolm Muggeridge:] He thinks he was knocked off his horse by God, like St. Paul on the road to Damascus. His critics think he simply fell off it from old age.

When it comes to housework the one thing no book of household management can ever tell you is how to begin. Or maybe I mean why.

In my next life I want to be a pessimist. Then other people could spend all their time cheering me up.

I suppose we all share this pipe-dream of being able to reach out a hand and find anything at will; what is amazing is that we think that good filing could somehow make it comes true. On the contrary: putting a letter into a filing system is like releasing your ferret in the Hampton Court maze.

As anyone who has ever fallen foul of an airport, a conventional hospital or a bad restaurant knows, misery is made up of little things.

Any committee that is the slightest use is composed of people who are too busy to want to sit on it for a second longer than they have to.