Marriage is like a three-speed gearbox - affection, friendship, love. It is not advisable to crash your gears and go right through to love straightaway. You need to ease your way through. The basis of love is respect, and that needs to be learned from affection and friendship.

As I grow older I find that though I think I'm saying the same things as I always did, people listen to me more.

The point of living, and of being an optimist, is to be foolish enough to believe the best is yet to come.

When I was small, I would refuse to drink when I ate fish because I thought the fish would reconstitute itself in my stomach

I can never forgive God for having invented the French

British education is probably the best in the world, if you can survive it. If you can't there is nothing left for you but the diplomatic corps.

Artificial glamor-false eyelashes, that sort of thing-usually is put on to hide a vacuum. The most beautiful face can only look vacuous if it masks an empty head.