England is the only civilised country in the world where it is etiquette to fall on the food like a wolf the moment it is served. Elsewhere it is comme il faut to wait until everybody has helped himself to everything and until everything on everybody's plate is stone cold.
Virginia GrahamGood shot, bad luck and hell are the five basic words to be used in a game of tennis, though these, of course, can be slightly amplified.
Virginia GrahamMaturity gives us jealous eyes. We look with jealousy on the younger woman because she doesn't know as much now as we do, and, oh, what we could do with our wisdom and her face.
Virginia GrahamThere are some composers - at the head of whom stands Beethoven - who not only do not know when to stop but appear to stop many times before they actually do.
Virginia GrahamCommittee meetings are always held at inconvenient times and usually take place in dark, dusty rooms the temperatures of which are unsuited to the human body.
Virginia GrahamIn society it is etiquette for ladies to have the best chairs and get handed things. In the home the reverse is the case. This is why ladies are more sociable than gentlemen.
Virginia GrahamOn the whole, and providing one is in good spirits and feeling reasonably bright, it is not hard to converse for a short space of time on subjects about which one knows little, and it is indeed often amusing to see how cunningly one can steer the conversational barque, hoisting and lowering her sails, tacking this way and that to avoid reefs, and finally racing feverishly for home with the outboard engine making a loud and cheerful noise.
Virginia GrahamThe women sit, getting colder and colder, on a seat getting harder and harder, watching oafs, getting muddier and muddier.
Virginia Grahamsuppose you invest time and effort in designing a new image for yourself. You get home and your husband takes one look and screams, 'Was the other person hurt? I see you've been in a head-on collision.' ... Men hate any change.
Virginia Grahamconformity has been a devastating thing. Its ill effects continue right to this day. Customers still look at the woman in the next chair and say, 'I'll have what she has.' That's all right for ordering at a restaurant - but not in a beauty parlor.
Virginia GrahamIt is not done to let anybody be too happy. The moment two people seem to be enjoying one another's company, a good hostess introduces a third element or removes the first.
Virginia Grahamwhen we travel, most of us take too much. I always work on the assumption that I'm going to take everything with me because I don't want the second wife to have anything if the plane crashes.
Virginia Graham