The Contessa was surely way ahead of her time, too, in believing that men were not only usless and idiotic, but downright dangerous. That idea wouldn't catch on big in her native country until the last three years of the Vietnam War.

I had taught myself that a human being might as well look for diamond tiaras in the gutter as for rewards and punishments that were fair.

She hated people who thought too much. At that moment, she struck me as an appropriate representative for almost all mankind.

Educating a beautiful woman is like pouring honey into a fine Swiss watch: everything stops.

A lot of people were opposed to it. A lot of people were for it. I myself think about it as little as possible.

It strikes me as gruesome and comical that in our culture we have an expectation that man can always solve his problems ... This is so untrue that it makes me want to cry-or laugh.

I am eternally grateful for my knack of finding in great books, some of them very funny books, reason enough to feel honored to be alive, no matter what else might be going on.