“People can't concentrate properly on blowing other people to pieces if their minds are poisoned by thoughts suitable to the twenty-fifth of December.”

“Tonight’s December thirty-first,Something is about to burst.The clock is crouching, dark and small,Like a time bomb in the hall.Hark, it's midnight, children dear.Duck! Here comes another year!”

“People who have what they want are fond of telling people who haven’t what they want that they really don’t want it.”

“Middle age is when you've met so many people that every new person you meet reminds you of someone else.”

“There are people who are very resourceful, at being remorseful,And who apparently feel that the best way to make friends is to do something terrible and then make amends.”

“Indeed, everybody wants to be a wow, But not everybody knows exactly how. Some people think they will eventually wear diamonds instead of rhinestones Only by everlastingly keeping their noses to their ghrinestones”

“There is one thing that ought to be taught in all the colleges,Which is that people ought to be taught not to go around always making apologies.I don't mean the kind of apologies people make when they run over you or borrow five dollars or step on your feet,Because I think that is sort of sweet;No, I object to one kind of apology alone,Which is when people spend their time and yours apologizing for everything they own.You go to their house for a meal,And they apologize because the anchovies aren't caviar or the partridge is veal;They apologize privately for the crudeness of the other guests,And they apologize publicly for their wife's housekeeping or their husband's jests;If they give you a book by Dickens they apologize because it isn't by Scott,And if they take you to the theater, they apologize for the acting and the dialogue and the plot;They contain more milk of human kindness than the most capacious diary can,But if you are from out of town they apologize for everything local and if you are a foreigner they apologize for everything American.I dread these apologizers even as I am depicting them,I shudder as I think of the hours that must be spend in contradicting them,Because you are very rude if you let them emerge from an argument victorious,And when they say something of theirs is awful, it is your duty to convince them politely that it is magnificent and glorious,And what particularly bores me with them,Is that half the time you have to politely contradict them when you rudely agree with them,So I think there is one rule every host and hostess ought to keep with the comb and nail file and bicarbonate and aromatic spirits on a handy shelf,Which is don't spoil the denouement by telling the guests everything is terrible, but let them have the thrill of finding it out for themselves.”