Elizabeth Bowen Quotes

Cocktail parties for me can be nerve-racking. The brevity of conversations, the number of them - it's not my sweet spot.

Large cocktail parties are an infamous technique for ridding yourself of social obligations to people you usually don't know well or like much, which is such an unpromising beginning that I've rarely known one that recovered and turned into a great party.

My father found cocktail parties challenging.

I always figure, you come to a party, you gotta know somebody. And somebody leads to another person and leads to somebody else, somebody else. That's one of things that I really enjoy doing.

If I go to a party, I'm not one to be the funniest person in the room at all.

But I always say, one's company, two's a crowd, and three's a party

Parties sickened me. I hated the game-playing, the dirty play, the flirting, the amateurs drunks, the bores.

the person talking to you never looks directly at you, but rather around the room, searching for the answer to the universal cocktail party question, 'Who's here tonight?

There must be some good in the cocktail party to account for its immense vogue among otherwise sane people.

Cocktail party: A gathering held to enable forty people to talk about themselves at the same time. The man who remains after the liquor is gone is the host.

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.

Like other parties of the kind, it was first silent, then talky, then argumentative, then disputatious, then unintelligible, then altogether, then inarticulate, and then drunk. When we had reached the last step of this glorious ladder, it was difficult to get down again without stumbling.

The best time to leave a party is when the party’s just beginning. There’s no drink that kills except the drink that you didn’t want to take, as the saying goes, and there’s no hour that kills except the hour you stayed after you wanted to go home.

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

On every formal visit a child ought to be of the party, by way of provisions for discourse.

I don't give parties, and I'm not in that social scene. I couldn't care less.

On parties it's not about who you are. The real reason to which a party revolves is how good you look.

Half of them kept repeating my name, trying to get it right, while the other half laughed. But they were harmless. Fun drunks make a nice addition to any party: Not looking to fight. Not looking to score. Just looking to get drunk and laugh. I remember those guys. Like the mascots of the party. "Clay! Whatcha doon here? Bah-ha-ha-ha!

No man does right by a woman at a party.

The cocktail party - as the name itself indicates - was originally invented by dogs. They are simply bottom-sniffings raised to the rank of formal ceremonies.

An intelligent woman is a woman with whom one can be as stupid as one wants.

I go to parties sometimes until four, it's hard to leave when you can't find the door.

Always take a banana to a party.

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 want to have a great party at Wembley, don't invite the Germans.