a perfectly managed Christmas correct in every detail is, like basted inside seams and letters answered by return, a sure sign of someone who hasn't enough to do.

It's a pity more men are not bastards by birth instead of vocation.

Newish friends, if they get ghastly, can be weighed and found wanting, but you'd never do a thing like that to old ones; their terrible habits are just part of the universe.

[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.

There's comfort to an awful old dressing-gown a pretty peignoir is powerless to provide, and aging bra elastic, is, I suspect, as near to liberation as most women ever get.

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

I blame Rousseau, myself. "Man is born free", indeed. Man is not born free, he is born attached to his mother by a cord and is not capable of looking after himself for at least seven years (seventy in some cases).