I always like to think I'm having a dinner party, and I'm the host, and the audience are my guests.

My dream dinner party guests would be Ethel Kennedy, Truman Capote and Hunter S. Thompson.

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.

'Dance Dance Revolution.' That's a lot of fun when you're having a dinner party and you just want to be a little silly.

At a formal dinner party, the person nearest death should always be seated closest to the bathroom.

The formal Washington dinner party has all the spontaneity of a Japanese imperial funeral.