Any real New Yorker is a you-name-it-we-have-it-snob whose heart brims with sympathy for the millions of unfortunates who through misfortune, misguidedness or pure stupidity live anywhere else in the world.

A lady is nothing very specific. One man's lady is another man's woman; sometimes, one man's lady is another man's wife. Definitions overlap but they almost never coincide.

The shaping of taste is essentially the science of merchandising, whether of detergents or cars or books or objects of fine and decorative art.

For all its flexibility, television is more a mirror of taste than a shaper of it.

It is always well to accept your own shortcomings with candor but to regard those of your friends with polite incredulity.

Wasting time is negative, but there is something positive about idleness.

Clutter is what happens to things when they become useless but friendly.