Being well-dressed gives a feeling of inward tranquility which psychoanalysis is powerless to bestow.

Being a dandy is a condition rather than a profession. It is a defense against suffering and a celebration of life.

Everyone says Oscar Wilde was a dandy, but he wasn't - he was an aesthete. He took pleasure in food and stuff like that. Dandyism is much more austere - much more Calvinistic, more neurotic - it oscillates between narcissism and neurosis.

I live my life like an open book, even though it's open on the wrong page.

I didn't want to tell Mother I worked as a journalist. She thought I was a prostitute. Locking yourself in a room and inventing characters and conversations which do not exit is no way for a grown man to behave.

I am not an intellectual. An intellectual is someone who looks at a sausage and thinks of Picasso, whereas I just say 'pass the mustard'.