If you describe things as better than they are, you are considered to be a romantic; if you describe things as worse than they are, you will be called a realist; and if you describe things exactly as they are, you will be thought of as a satirist.

I don't know how people act. I've never understood that.

You can't be a person and a lady. If you're a person, you can open the damned door yourself.

The young always have the same problem - how to rebel and conform at the same time. They have now solved this by defying their parents and copying one another.

You fall out of your mother's womb, you crawl across open country under fire, and drop into your grave.

My function in life was to render clear what was already blindingly conspicuous.

Of course I lie to people. But I lie altruistically - for our mutual good. The lie is the basic building block of good manners. That may seem mildly shocking to a moralist - but then what isn't?