I have always paid income tax. I object only when it reaches a stage when I am threatened with having nothing left for my old age - which is due to start next Tuesday or Wednesday.

My body has certainly wandered a good deal, but I have an uneasy suspicion that my mind has not wandered enough.

How about slipping out of those wet things and into a dry Martini?

Fifty-four years of love and tenderness and crossness and devotion and unswerving loyalty. Without her I could have achieved a quarter of what I have achieved, not only in terms of success and career, but in terms of personal happiness.

It is my considered opinion that the human race (soi disant) is cruel, idiotic, sentimental, predatory, ungrateful, ugly, conceited and egocentric to the last ditch and that the occasional discovery of an isolated exception is as deliciously surprising as finding a sudden brazil nut in what you know to be five pounds of vanilla creams. These glorious moments, although not making life actually worth living, perhaps, at least make it pleasanter.

Madame Bovary is the sexiest book imaginable. The woman's virtually a nyphomaniac but you won't find a vulgar word in the entire thing.

Extraordinary how potent cheap music is.