I read all the books I could find about manners, and the extraordinary thing was, in all books up to the end of the Second World War, most were directed at how to comport yourself in the presence of the ladies.

For flavor, instant sex will never supersede the stuff you have to peel and cook.

It's a strange situation, but people will pay your fare to get you to go and tell them how to be happy.

Living en famille provides the strongest motives for rudeness combined with the maximum opportunity for displaying it.

Charisma is the ability to influence without logic.

To minimize my guilt at going to the pictures - to call this wanton pursuit of an effete pleasure by another name - I needed movie companions as drunkards need drinking partners. If I entered a cinema alone, God might plunge his arm through the roof of the auditorium booming in a stereophonic voice, 'And you, Crisp, what are you doing here?' I would never have dared reply, 'I'm just enjoying myself, Lord.'

You can behave as badly as you like in America. Nobody notices.