Hal Boyle Quotes

Cocktail parties ... are usually not parties at all but mass ceremonials designed to clear up at one great stroke a wealth of obligations.

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.

The cocktail party is easily the worst invention since castor oil

A cocktail party is a place where you talk with a person you do not know about a subject you have no interest in.

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

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.

Finally ... You have accomplished your mission in going there tonight - you were 'seen,' and you furnished your host and hostess with the sincerest proof of your great love and friendship for them - you endured their cocktail party.

Without peanuts, it isn't a cocktail party.

The cocktail party is probably America's greatest contribution to the world of entertaining.

I misremember who first was cruel enough to nurture the cocktail party into life. But perhaps it would be not too much to say, in fact it would be not enough to say, that it was not worth the trouble.

The cheese and wine party has the form of friendship without the warmth and devotion. It is a device either for getting rid of social obligations hurriedly en mass, or for making overtures towards more serious social relationships, as in the etiquette of whoring.

Nowadays, people don't ask you how you are, they say, 'Are you busy?' meaning, 'Are you well?' If someone actually does ask you how you are, the most cheerful answer, of course, is a robust 'Busy!' to which the person will reply 'Good!'

My father found cocktail parties challenging.

Our profession is very much like going to a cocktail party, you check out the guest list.

She kindly laments that I am not of the party, and to be sure I honour great ladies, and I admire great wits, but I am of the same opinion in regard to assemblies that is held concerning oysters, that they are never good in a month that has not the letter R in it.

I do spend - I feel like I spend about my first 20 minutes at any cocktail party convincing people that I'm not going to harm them in some way.

As an adult I've developed better social skills; I know how to do a conversation, I know how to do a party. I find them wearying, though, and I like that in lockdown no one expects me to go to them.

Meetings ... are rather like cocktail parties. You don't want to go, but you're cross not to be asked.

I unfortunately have never in my life been to a wild party.

Parties are the nightly ritual of the sophisticated society.

Another stupid party . . . with six people to look on, and talk nonsense to each other.

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

To get fifty people to a cocktail party in New York, you ask one hundred. In Hollywood, you invite twenty.

I never did well meeting strangers, so my favorite part of partying as a couple was that I didn't need to strike up conversation from scratch. If you've ever had to go out and meet new people on your own, you would understand. It can be a bit of an awkward situation. If you're already out at a party with someone you know, it takes that pressure off.