Of course I don't want to go to a cocktail party...If I wanted to stand around with a load of people I don't know eating bits of cold toast I can get caught shoplifting and go to Holloway [women's prison].
Awards shows... I just feel like a fish out of water at those things.
Meetings ... are rather like cocktail parties. You don't want to go, but you're cross not to be asked.
You could not receive a young man in your room; you might be permitted to have him to tea in one of the public reception rooms, but you could accept no invitation from young men to tea or other entertainment without a chaperone from the College.
As social secretary, I was responsible for putting together all the events that the President and the First Lady host.
No precedence ... of anyone over another, exists in right or practice, at dinners, assemblies, or any other occasions. 'Pell-mell' and 'next the door' for the basis of etiquette in the societies of this country.
[On public events attended by royalty:] It was the usual 'zoo tea.' You know, we eat - the others watch.
I was an emcee for bar mitzvahs from age sixteen to twenty-one.
If I go to posh parties, I hover by the kitchen so I can get as many nice canapes as possible.
I don't like award ceremonies.
A lot of business can be accomplished in the state dinners.
You can imagine the kind of dinner parties I had to go to at a young age... pretty dull.
You'd be surprised how much easier it is to conduct business over tea than over lunch or dinner in a bustling restaurant.
I prefer if friends come over to my office and we talk our heart out over a cup of coffee. I feel that no one talks freely at industry bashes. Everyone has to behave in a certain way, and I think no one is real there. We can't have heart-to-heart conversations, and I start feeling uncomfortable at such dos.
And from the whole she deduced this useful lesson, that to go previously engaged to a ball, does not necessarily increase either the dignity or enjoyment of a young lady.
I never went to any high school dances or proms unless I was playing in them.
People take toasting way too seriously - especially the clinking glasses part. There are always a few people who are seated too far away from each other to easily clink.
Lyall had spent centuries nibbling about the great layered cake that was polite society while Lord Akeldama acted the part of the frosting on its top.
I wouldn't mind being a fly on the wall in a few Victorian parlours.
