Harry Golden Quotes

I would rather be seated between any two women than any two men at a dinner party.

A wise man once said, 'The skill in attending a party is knowing when it's time to leave.'

When I was in high school, the genders were so separate from each other. If you weren't 'dating' somebody, you couldn't just be friends with somebody.

I've never, ever had people being aggressive to me in public or abusing me, and actually quite a lot of men do say to me, 'You're quite good' - though they can't bear to go, 'You're great.'

I've twice run against women opponents, and it's a very different kind of approach. For those of us who have some chivalry left, there's a level of respect... You treat some things as a special treasure; you treat other things as common.

I have noticed... that men usually leave married women alone and are inclined to treat all wives with respect. This is no great credit to married women.

Well, because I'm naturally a tomboy, when I have sleepovers with girls, they end up going home and crying.

I've always gotten along with guys better.

If you feel like it's hard to be friends with women, consider that maybe women aren't the problem. Maybe it's just you.

There are always women who will take men on their own terms. If I were a man I wouldn't bother to change while there are women like that around.

There are different groups of people in your life that you behave slightly differently with. You behave one way with your family. You behave in a different way with your work colleagues. You behave differently with your friends from the movie club, your fitness instructor - all subtly different personas.

As a 15-year-old teenage girl, I can attest to the fact that boys dominate most conversations between girls my age.

Grandmother belongs to the generation of women who were satisfied to have men retain their vices, if they removed their hats.

Did they find something wanting in you, Gemma, at the party? You didn’t speak too freely or behave…strangely?” I grew claws and bayed at the moon. I confessed that I eat the hearts of small children. I told them I like the French.

Men are forever eager to press drink upon those they consider their superiors, hoping thereby to eliminate that distinction between them.... And women, when confronted by superiors, substitute for drink the crippling liquor of their sex.

If it is a cocktail party, I think bringing your partner, husband or wife is fine. To a certain extent, when someone throws a party, they expect to have people over. If it's a seated dinner, though, you should check beforehand. Asking to bring your partner is fair. Asking to bring eight friends from college is not. A good hostess will always accommodate extras and stragglers, but she'll never forget who brought them.

If you decide on having an alcoholic at your party, make sure it's a large gathering. This way, until the alcoholic begins removing their clothes or dangling the cat out the window, they can sort of blend in. An alcoholic at a small gathering is called an intervention.

A party is a slightly artificial event where one learns the rudiments of human behavior at its most admirable: speaking when spoken to, looking somebody in the eye, shaking hands and being friendly under duress.

Oh, it's always the same,' she sighed, 'if you want men to behave well to you, you must be beastly to them; if you treat them decently they make you suffer for it.

An office party is not, as is sometimes supposed, the Managing Director's chance to kiss the tea-girl. It is the tea-girl's chance to kiss the Managing Director (however bizarre an ambition this may seem to anyone who has seen the Managing Director face on).

Although the advice that you get if you got to see Margaret is 'stand up for yourself, shout back, and argue the toss and then she will respect you', the trouble is that sort of advice to the English middle-class male of a certain age doesn't actually help us very much because we've always been brought up to believe that it's extremely rude to shout back at women.

Women seldom forfeit their claims to respect to men whom they respect.

I don't think that women ought to sit down at table with men. It ruins conversation and I'm sure it's very bad for them. It puts ideas in their heads, and women are never at ease with themselves when they have ideas.

The cocktail party has a simple function in modern society. Its basic purpose is to pay off social debts.

I'm not the kind of guy who just goes up to women.