The British have turned their sense of humour into a national virtue. It is odd, because through much of history, humour has been considered cheap, and laughter something for the lower orders. But British aristocrats didn't care a damn about what people thought of them, so they made humour acceptable.

To be a catalyst is the ambition most appropriate for those who see the world as being in constant change, and who, without thinking that they can control it, wish to influence its direction.

Two individuals, conversing honestly, can be inspired by the feeling that they are engaged in a joint enterprise, aiming at inventing an art which has not been tried before.

The great attraction of fashion is that it diverted attention from the insoluble problems of beauty and provided an easy way -- which money could buy... to a simply stated, easily reproduced ideal of beauty, however temporary that ideal.

The brain is full of lonely ideas, begging you to make some sense of them, to recognize them as interesting. The lazy brain just files them away in old pigeonholes, like a bureaucrat who wants an easy life. The lively brain picks and chooses and creates new works of art out of ideas.

Forks and spoons have probably done more to reconcile people who cannot agree than guns and bombs ever did

The kind of conversation I like is one in which you are prepared to emerge a slightly different person.