“Famous old houses seem to have an intuitive perception of the value of corner lots. If it is a possible thing, they always set themselves down on the most desirable spot.”

“For years Pershing Square has been one of the three or four places in America famous to homosexuals, famous not for its posh, the chic is round-heeled here, but because it is one of the avatars of good old masturbatory sex, dirty with the crusted sugars of smut, dirty rooming houses around the corner where the score is made, dirty book and photograph stores down the street.”

“I could have been more famous if I did all the glitzy things, but celebrity always seemed so unnecessary … Fame and success are very different things, anyway.”

“Mrs. Oliver in her own opinion was famous for her intuition. One intuition succeeded another with remarkable rapidity, and Mrs. Oliver always claimed the right to justify the particular intuition which turned out to be right!”

“Intuition (is) perception via the unconscious”

“Some women wait for themselves around the next corner and call the empty spot peace but the opposite of living is only not living and the stars do not care.”

“One that desires to excel should endeavour in those things that are in themselves most excellent.”

“Things to be done offer themselves, I suppose, because they are in themselves desirable; not because it is desirable to have something to do.”

“I kept a diary during our White House years, and I have drawn upon it often in this book. I experience the world through my intuitions and feelings, and you’ll find out a lot about those in these pages.
My mother used to say, “Play the hand that’s dealt you,” and that is what I have always tried to do. And this, for better or worse, is how it seemed to me.”

“Old pictures look very rugged and young, and the people in the photographs always seem a lot happier than you are.”