Beautiful speech doesn't need protection, it's ugly speech that needs protection. We have these cultural norms that allow people to say really ugly things. You don't have to invite them to your dinner party, but you should let them say it.

At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely.

The cocktail party is a device for paying off obligations to people you don't want to invite for dinner.

I don't walk into a dinner party and say, 'You're an idiot; give me my coat.'

I've never been to a dinner party where everyone at the dinner table didn't say something funny.

It was a pity she couldn't do justice to the meal, which featured Scottish salmon, steaming roast joints, venison haunch accompanied by sausages and sweetbreads, and elaborate vegetable casseroles dressed with cream and butter and truffles. For dessert there were platters of luxury fruits; raspberries, nectarines, cherries, peaches and pineapples, as well as a surfeit of cakes, tarts, and syllabubs.