Now you can leave home at any time you like.Your mother comes down and finds a picture of the Eiffel Tower on her plate. And she says, 'Oh! Rosemary's gone to Paris. No wonder the bathroom was so tidy.' And nobody minds. But in my day, to go abroad with all those wicked Frenchmen, what would become of them? So no-one ever went anywhere.

In New York, I find people so courteous and so generous. Free drinks in bars. Free taxi rides.

Though intelligence is powerless to modify character, it is a dab hand at finding euphemisms for its weaknesses.

Nowadays people don't use face powder; they say it dries the skin. But I makeup in the old-fashioned way.

The poverty from which I have suffered could be diagnosed as 'Soho' poverty. It comes from having the airs and graces of a genius and no talent.

Central Europe is full of little countries standing shoulder to shoulder with no window to the sea. They are like the passengers in a rush-hour train which has stopped between stations for three centuries. And they all hate one another. And they're all crushed together waving their national flags, clanking their national chains, jabbering their national language.

Never keep up with the Joneses. Drag them down to your level.