Quotes & Sayings About A Dinner Party

Revolution is not a dinner party, not an essay, nor a painting, nor a piece of embroidery; it cannot be advanced softly, gradually, carefully, considerately, respectfully, politely, plainly, and modestly. — Mao Zedong

The ritual is designed to get a group of people through the hour without having to get close to anyone. They may, but they don't have to. It is more comfortable to go to a High Church Mass than to attend a revival service where one may be asked, "Are you saved, brother?" Sexual relations are less awkward in the dark for people for whom physical intimacy has no involvement at the level of personality. There is less chance for involvement in throwing a cocktail party than in having a dinner for six. There is little commitment, therefore little fulfillment. Rituals, like withdrawal, can keep us apart. An — Thomas A. Harris

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

If I were invited to a dinner party with my characters, I wouldn't show up. — Dr. Seuss

Octavia Spencer rocks. But just as a human being, she's so down-to-earth. Talk about being pleasantly surprised. You walk onto set, and she's making these jokes, and she's playing around with the cast and the crew, and she invited all to her house for a dinner party. She's just a genuinely good person. — Ciara Bravo

Revolution is not a dinner party. — Sun Yat-sen

If people are asking me for clubbing tips, then they're in real trouble. My clubbing tip is never go to a club, because they're horrible and I hate them. I'm more of a dinner party guy. — Simon Bird

When entertaining a party of six or more always use place cards. When guests know where they are sitting it puts them at ease immediately and they are assured you have given thoughtful consideration as to who their dinner partner will be. — Annie Falk

At your next dinner party, try playing the following game. Challenge everyone around the table to produce a single drug that can cure people of an illness, other then antibiotics. If you come up with anything, stop whatever you are doing and call me. — Lynne McTaggart

Normally I don't approve of children staying up late,' he said finally, 'unless they are reading a very good book, seeing a wonderful movie, or attending a dinner party with fascinating guests. — Lemony Snicket

I am almost ashamed to answer,' she said. 'As I have said before, Emily
Fox-Seton has become the lodestar of my existence. I cannot live without
her. She has walked over to Maundell to make sure that we do not have a
dinner-party without fish to-night.'
'She has _walked_ over to Maundell,' said Lord Walderhurst
'after
yesterday?'
'There was not a pair of wheels left in the stable,' answered Lady
Maria. 'It is disgraceful, of course, but she is a splendid walker, and
she said she was not too tired to do it. It is the kind of thing she
ought to be given the Victoria Cross for
saving one from a dinner-party
without fish.'
The Marquis of Walderhurst took up the cord of his monocle and fixed the
glass rigidly in his eye.
'It is not only four miles to Maundell,' he remarked, staring at the
table-cloth, not at Lady Maria, 'but it is four miles back. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

All of our panelists are deeply engaged in the topics at hand, so that leaves me free to convene a little dinner party, sans alcohol, and invite the rest of America to listen in. — Gwen Ifill

In less than a decade, social media is one of those things that has become part of the fabric of society. It is also something about which everyone has an opinion. At some point in a dinner party, someone tends to malign social media for being full of updates about lunch or photos of pets. Life is full of froth. It is the mundane that makes us human. The seemingly inconsequential tidbits we share help us forge social bonds and bring us closer together. — Alfred Hermida

I deserve this shrimp. Born to people who clearly shouldn't have reproduced, I date my best friend and turn him gay, date another man who doesn't know he's gay, almost have dinner with a third man who's more interested in his reflection than me, and land on a yeti who turns out to be a millionaire playboy.

"I lost the man I thought of as a father, had my thirtieth birthday party minus any family, and now I'm being dissed in the gossip rags. I am only human and I can take no more, so, yes, I have consumed my body weight in wine and I plan on eating this whole goddamn plate of shrimp. — L.A. Fiore

A high-school girl, seated next to a famous astronomer at a dinner party, struck up a conversation with him by asking: "What do you do for a living?" "I study astronomy," he replied. "Really? said the teenager, wide-eyed. "I finished astronomy last year." — James Keller

I adore summer entertaining. For a dinner party at the farm, I might prepare homemade fettuccine with porcini mushrooms, soft-shell crabs, spinach from the garden, and lemon tarts with fraises des bois for dessert. — Martha Stewart

I was so lucky that I got to meet certain people. It came through Roddy McDowall, who had become a photographer and would do these portraits of celebrities. Then he would get another well-known person to write a thing. He photographed me when I was 15 or 16, and he got Jason Robards to write the thing because he was sort of my mentor. And Roddy would invite me to these dinner parties that were insane. Like, Elizabeth Taylor and Maureen O'Hara and people that were just crazy. I still can't really believe that I met them. — Winona Ryder

Think of a dinner party as a club of revolutionaries, a technocratic elite whose social interactions that night are a dry run for some future takeover of the state. — Phillip Lopate

I'm actually kinda quiet off stage, a lotta people don't realize that, I was at a dinner party recently, a bunch of people that I don't know, one guy talking plenty for everybody, Me myself right and then I and then myself and mee me I couldn't tell this one about I cause I was talking about myself and Me- Meee- Mee- Me- Me! Beware the me monster. — Brian Regan

It is quite proper to meet a young man at a cocktail party and go on to dinner with him. If he is attractive, you can consider yourself not only correct, but lucky. — Alice-Leone Moats

But we often put our loves out of order. If someone tells you something in confidence and then you blab it as good gossip at a dinner party, you are putting your love of popularity above your love of friendship. If you talk more at a meeting than you listen, you may be putting your ardor to outshine above learning — David Brooks

The best number for a dinner party is two; myself and a damn good head waiter. — Nubar Gulbenkian

When writing a thank-you if you've had lunch with someone downtown, send an e-mail. If somebody is giving you a dinner party in his or her home and all the work that takes, that person deserves a written thank-you. — Letitia Baldrige

Uniformed soldiers rolled out a red carpet. A band stood at attention ready to play. Thousands of people waited outside the gates, jittery with excitement over the king's arrival. Inside, a fancy dinner and big party had been prepared. That's how a visiting king should be treated. Yet when the King of Kings arrived on earth, He was born in a humble stable. The Lord of the Universe made His appearance, and almost everyone slept through it. — AIOTeam

I met a hustler at a dinner party. He had been invited because I was looking for an adviser to help me with the street scenes. So we put him on the film. — John Schlesinger

Excerpt from the Marquis's Mistake by myself.
"So what am I my Lord, an antidote, a bluestocking or on the shelf? I assume it is the last because I should have come out three years ago and am all of twenty and one."
"But you were not out so that doesn't count and I find you extremely desirable so you are far from an antidote. I think you very pretty and my taste has always been considered excellent. You are well educated but have other interests and ride well, so you fail to fit the criteria of a bluestocking. It might interest you to know my grandmother put you top of the girls she invited to her dinner party. Her opinion only confirmed what I had already concluded from examining your notebook and sketches. You eavesdrop and I sneak a peek at other people's private notebooks. You see I think we would be well-matched. — Giselle Marks

The perfect party for me is having six to 12 people for dinner Friday or Saturday - good, fun friends, a lot of artists. I have a beautiful deck that looks over the canyon and Los Angeles on one side, so it's very pretty at night. It's a great opportunity to catch up with friends. — Sofia Milos

The economic dimension is very clear. I was at a dinner party, a mother got up, who's a very distinguished scientist, and said she had to get home and help her daughter with her homework. The two waiters, their faces changed. They were working their second jobs, they couldn't get home to help their kids with homework. — Donna Shalala

There's nothing new about European anti-Americanism. To go to a dinner party of intellectuals in Paris in 1960 was like walking into a tiger's den with a piece of raw meat in your hands. — Charles McCarry

I can get a better grasp of what is going on in the world from one good Washington dinner party than from all the background information NBC piles on my desk. — Barbara Walters

If you do not have - right now - an FAL, M1, M1A, or HK91, then there is something you have chosen not to own for your freedom. If you do own such a rifle but cannot - right now - from offhand position hit a dinner plate at 100yds within 5 seconds on demand without fail, then there is a skill you have chosen not to earn for your freedom. If you are not a Rifleman - right now - then you have announced to the world that your commitment to liberty goes only just so far. If you will not spend a summer and the price of a used jetski to become a Rifleman - to become a deadly foe of tyranny - then you are just mouthing platitudes, treating liberty as a hobby and expecting brave men to do your fighting for you. If you're not a Rifleman - you're just a hobbyist. By choosing to move to a state where you can't become a Rifleman, a hobbyist is what you'll remain. — Boston T. Party

He did not know exactly when to thank his hostess after attending a dinner or a weekend party. In his uncertainty, he would thank her over and over again. It was as though he hoped to achieve through the effect of accumulation what one speech alone could not accomplish.
Wassilly was puzzled by the fact that these social responses did not come naturally to him, as they evidently did to others. He tried to learn them by watching other people closely, and was to some extent successful. But why was it such a difficult game? Sometimes he felt like a wolf-child who had only recently joined humanity. — Lydia Davis

Talk show host Charlie Rose asked folk rocker Neil Young about following his own muse. "So if you get an idea at, say, a dinner party, if you hear a tune or a lyric, do you excuse yourself from the party?" Charlie inquired. "Of course. You never know when she'll [the muse] come again. I'm responsible to her." Sometimes, Neil would hide out in a bathroom to scratch out a song that was coming to him and return to his dinner guests after he felt he'd captured it. When you feel an idea comin' on, excuse yourself. Pull over to the side of the road. Get lost in the creative flow. Be late. Barge in. — Danielle LaPorte

You've got to have the right attire for the right event. I attend a lot of dinners, a lot of concerts, and I have to be on the red carpet; each has its own dress code, and I have to be prepared. Jeans and a hoodie are great for a concert, but a dinner party? — Amar'e Stoudemire

I believe the potluck tradition of entertaining is the equivalent of a teenage boy wanting to have sex with his girlfriend but who is too scared to go to CVS to buy condoms. If you can't handle providing all the courses for your dinner party, you can't handle the hosting duties of a dinner party. — Mindy Kaling

President Obama hosted a state dinner for British Prime Minister David Cameron. The president and the British are getting along a lot better lately. They love to compare notes on ways the Tea Party's always trying to overthrow their rule in America. — Argus Hamilton

You should feel good about making your home nicer for your family and your friends. You should feel great about cooking a good dinner and making a dress for a granddaughter, creating a beautiful birthday party. It's all part of life. — Martha Stewart

Coffee: Induces wit. Good only if it comes through Havre. After a big dinner party it is taken standing up. Take it without sugar - very swank: gives the impression you have lived in the East. — Gustave Flaubert

First base was a far richer social opportunity. First base made catching feeling like a bad dinner party - what with the ump hanging on your shoulder and all the fans and cameras staring at you. At first base you could really talk. — Michael Lewis

P.P.P.P.S. Also, if you try to make a shrimp boil, but the bag of spices bursts, and so you just toss it in along with whatever spices you can find in the pantry
you can make homemade pepper spray. Unintentionally.
And everyone at your dinner party will run outside for the next hour, coughing and tearing up as if they've been maced, because technically they kind of have been, because mace was one of the spices I found in the panty. I blame whoever makes spice out of mace, and I remind my gasping dinner guests that even if I did mace them, I did it in an old fashioned, homemade, Martha Stewart sort of way. With love. — Jenny Lawson

I now know the key is to do what we call ABC: Acknowledge, Boundary, Close. Whenever you sense someone is about to start manipulating you, you need to go into ABC mode. First the Acknowledge. I could've repeated what she said. Yes, a lot of work has gone into the situation (in this case, the dinner party), and it is wonderful. Then the Boundary: "I have to leave in five minutes." The other person may or may not approve but that is no longer your problem. The benefits from doing this in your life will far outweigh the discomfort of that moment. Just keep repeating ABC. Finally, the Close: After a few minutes, leave. ABC is a very effective way of dealing with manipulative behavior. You first need to understand what is happening (recognize the onset of manipulation) because if you act immediately, without recognizing what you are feeling, without taking — James Altucher

Marriage, after all, was the known, not the unknown: the dull dinner party, not the madcap masquerade. It was a set of issues and events that audiences knew all too well offscreen. Unlike the wide-open frontier of the western, offering freedom and adventure, or the lyrical musical, with its fantasy of release through singing and dancing, or the woman's film, with its placing of a marginalized social figure (the woman) at the center of the universe, or the gangster movie, with its violent excitement and obvious sexual freedom, the marriage film had to reflect what moviegoers already had experienced: marriage, in all its boredom and daily responsibilities. — Jeanine Basinger

I was brought up in a way that when you're at a dinner party, you don't grab a chip unless it's been offered to everyone else. It's the manners of being brought up by English parents. — Hugh Jackman

At a dinner party in north London, I listened to friends bragging about buying Porsches with their bonuses and sending out from their offices for pizzas and clean shirts because they were clinching a deal and could not leave their desks. I wanted to tell them of a place where every family had lost a son or a husband or had a leg blown off, almost every child seen someone die in a rocket attack and where a small boy had told me his dream was to have a brightly coloured ball. But, when I began to talk about Afghanistan, I watched eyes glaze and felt as if I was trying to have a conversation about a movie no one else had seen. — Christina Lamb

My girlfriend and I went to a dinner party the other night and we ended up playing charades. There was another couple there that was deaf. They were so good. — Zach Galifianakis

She had gone to a dinner party in her honor the night before the opening, and everyone had asked, with precisely the same intonation, as though it was a piece of urban Gregorian chant, Where have you been? — Anna Quindlen

One looks back to what was called a 'wine-party' with a sort of wonder. Thirty lads round a table covered with bad sweetmeats, drinking bad wines, telling bad stories, singing bad songs over and over again. Milk punch-- smoking--ghastly headache-- frightful spectacle of dessert-table next morning, and smell of tobacco--your guardian, the clergyman, dropping in, in the midst of this--expecting to find you deep in Algebra, and discovering the Gyp administering soda-water.

There were young men who despised the lads who indulged in the coarse hospitalities of wine-parties, who prided themselves in giving recherche little French dinners. Both wine-party-givers and dinner-givers were Snobs. — William Makepeace Thackeray

A guest at a dinner party observed the strange expression on James Thurber's face. 'Don't be concerned,' said Thurber's wife. 'He's writing.' — Sophy Burnham

Once you've got a big feminist and political justification for talking about how you went round to Benedict Cumberbatch's house and did period all over his sofa, then there's no reason not to tell that anecdote in the middle of a dinner party. — Caitlin Moran

Once, while talking to a group at a dinner party that included Larry Ellison, Amelio tried to put his company's problems in perspective for the other guests. "Apple is a boat," he said. "There's a hole in the boat, and it's taking on water. But there's also a treasure on board. And the problem is, everyone on board is rowing in different directions, so the boat is just standing still. My job is to get everyone rowing in the same direction." After Amelio walked away, Ellison turned to the person standing next to him and asked, "But what about the hole?" That was one story Steve never got tired of telling. — Brent Schlender

With four-appetizer, four-entree menus, it's like, give me a break. That's not a restaurant, that's a dinner party. — Joe Bastianich

The day comes in the life of every single man living alone when he must give a dinner party, however unpretentious, and that day had now arrived for Rupert Stonebird. — Barbara Pym

Whether you are attending someone else's or holding your own dinner party, your main objective should be to lead guests away from the usual road of predictable behaviour and tedious conversation, and towards a shared voyage of epicurean delight.
In much the same way as caged animals in zoos are kept mentally healthy by being set mealtime tasks by their keepers, dinner guests will find their repast far more satisfying if it is presented as a challenge and an opportunity for self-expression. For example, instead of the dry old formula of a plate flanked by serried ranks of knives, forks and spoons, today's modern host should show a little more ingenuity when selecting eating utensils. The novelty of using a Black & Decker two-speed drill to sheer flakes of the roast beef or a 15-inch spanner to negotiate the foie gras, will firmly place your party in the minds of your guests as a night to remember. — Gustav Temple And Vic Darkwood

I was invited to a dinner party by an ex, and I was convinced that he wanted to rekindle our relationship. I prohibited my friends from coming with me because I didn't want to make it awkward for them when he professed his love to me. — Chrissie Fit

He expected her to feel what she did not know how to feel. There were things that existed for him that she could not penetrate. With his close friends, she often felt vaguely lost. They were youngish and well-dressed and righteous, their sentences filled with "sort of," and "the ways in which"; they gathered at a bar every Thursday, and sometimes one of them had a dinner party, where Ifemelu mostly listened, saying little, looking at them in wonder: were they serious, these people who were so enraged about imported vegetables that ripened in trucks? They wanted to stop child labor in Africa. They would not buy clothes made by underpaid workers in Asia. They looked at the world with an impractical, luminous earnestness that moved her, but never convinced her. Surrounded by them, Blaine hummed with references unfamiliar to her, and he would seem far away, as though he belonged to them, and when he finally looked at her, his eyes warm and loving, she felt something like relief. — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Being really alone means being free from anticipation. Even to know that something is going to happen, that I am required to do something is an intrusion on the emptiness I am after. What I love to see is an empty diary, pages and pages of nothing planned. A date, an arrangement, is a point in the future when something is required of me. I begin to worry about it days, sometimes weeks ahead. Just a haircut, a hospital visit, a dinner party. Going out. The weight of the thing-that-is-going-to-happen sits on my heart and crushes the present into non-existence. My ability to live in the here and now depends on not having any plans, on there being no expected interruption. I have no other way to do it. How can you be alone, properly alone, if you know someone is going to knock at the door in five hours, or tomorrow morning, or you have to get ready and go out in three days' time? I can't abide the fracturing of the present by the intrusion of a planned future. — Jenny Diski

I blinked at him. "What does salt have to do with any of this?"
"It protects you from evil."
"Salt?" Disbelief all but dripped from my voice. I couldn't help it. "Table salt? How is seasoning myself going to help? This isn't a dinner party. — Alyxandra Harvey

The song 'Humiliation' is kind of about what if, outside of a dinner party or something, I was blown up by a drone missile, out by the pool. What an embarrassing way to go. — Matt Berninger

Spenser Reynolds began telling about his next project - an attempt to have suicides coordinate their leaps from bridges on a score of worlds while the All Thing watched - and Tyrena Wingreen-Feif stole all attention by putting her arm around Monsignor Edouard and inviting him to her after-dinner nude swimming party at her floating estate on Mare Infinitus. I — Dan Simmons

It was nothing I hadn't thought of, plenty, and in far less taxing circumstances; the urge shook me grandly and unpredictably, a poisonous whisper that never wholly left me, that on some days lingered just on the threshold of my hearing but on others roared up uncontrollably into a sort of lurid visionary frenzy, why I wasn't sure, sometimes even a bad movie or a gruesome dinner party could trigger it, short term boredom and long term pain, temporary panic and permanent desperation striking all at once and flaring up in such an ashen desolate light — Tartt

Could she really do it? Could she really go all that way by herself? Yes, she whispered, of course you can do it: you're thirty-eight years old and you're not going to the moon, just to Baghdad. The word sounded the way a shiver felt. At the dinner party in London it had been a shiver of excitement, but now it held a frisson of dread. She — Lindsay Jayne Ashford

Nothing says 'classy' like posting bond for your girlfriend so you can escort her to a black-tie dinner. — Linda Morris

It is a fact of life that people give dinner parties, and when they invite you, you have to turn around and invite them back. Often they retaliate by inviting you again, and you must then extend another invitation. Back and forth you go, like Ping-Pong balls, and what you end up with is called social life. — Laurie Colwin

In the rosy glow it diffused her companions seemed full of amiable qualities. She liked their elegance; their lightness, their lack of emphasis: even the self-assurance which at times was so like obtuseness now seemed the natural sign of social ascendency. They were lords of the only world she cared for, and they were ready to admit her to their ranks and let her lord it with them. Already she felt within her a stealing allegiance to their standards, an acceptance of their limitations, a disbelief in the things they did not believe in, a contemptuous pity for the people who were not able to live as they lived. — Edith Wharton

Hosting is work. It means you don't get to go up to your room and disappear and take a nap. Like everybody else does after lunch. I'm talking about hosting, not hosting a dinner party, but hosting people staying in your home. — George Clooney

people are taking a bottle of wine to a dinner party or for a gift, they'll often settle on Chardonnay. — James Waldorf

I think middle age begins once you start looking forward to eating dinner before six thirty, or when you call the cops when your next-door neighbor has a party. — Amy Poehler

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

Simons, as restrained as Bradlee could be hard-charging and obstreperous, liked to tell of watching Bradlee grind his cigarrettes out in a demitasse cup during a formal dinner party. Bradlee was one of the few persons who could pull that kind of thing off and leave the hostess saying how charming he was.
Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward — Carl Bernstein

and a barge that sailed into the banqueting-hall with his week's washing, just as he was giving a dinner-party; and he was — Kenneth Grahame

With whiskey, the capillary bloom was more diffusely rosy than with gin and less purple than with wine. Every university dinner party was a study in blooms. — Jonathan Franzen

And marriage, generally, requires an exquisite sense of timing. As a single person, time is relative to one's needs and demands; as a married partner, time is a joint venture - the husband may be an hour late getting home, while dinner grows cold; the wife may be an hour late dressing for a party, while her mate grows hot under the collar. Time does not belong to us alone; we share it with those we love, those we work for, those we play with. It is an elastic concept: we must, as we grow older, be willing to be bored for someone else's sake. And it can be as fatal to be stingy with our time as with our money. — Sydney J. Harris

Somewhere in the back of their minds, hosts and guests alike know that the dinner party is a source of untold irritation, and that even the dullest evening spent watching television is preferable. — Craig Brown

[On the socialites in New York in the Nineties who devoted themselves to politics, charities, and other volunteer work:] I never knew but one woman who devoted her life exclusively to the social game. She ended her days arranging dinner parties with paper dolls, a breakdown pitiful to watch. — Margaret Case Harriman

I like to cook for 2, or for 4 or 6 at the most 8 people. Beyond that you get into quantity cooking and that is just not my field at all. The last time we had 12 for a sit-down dinner and I did all the cooking, and Paul and I did all the setting up, serving, and washing up afterwards, I said never again. I'll do a buffet, but I don't consider that civilized dining; it is feeding, and I like to sit down at a well-set table. — Julia Child

She was bad at love. There were people in the world who were good at love and people who were bad at it. She was bad. She used to think she was good at love, that it was intimacy she was bad at. But you had to have both. Love without intimacy, she knew, was an unsung tune. It was all in your head. You said, "Listen to this!" but what you found yourself singing was a tangle, a nothing, a heap. It reminded her of a dinner party she had gone to once, where dessert was served on plates printed with French songs. After dinner everyone had had to sing their plate, but hers had still had whipped cream on it, and when it came her turn, she had garbled the notes and words, frantically pushing the whipped cream around with a fork so she could see the next measure. Oh, she was bad, bad like that, at love. — Lorrie Moore

When we're discussing who to invite to a dinner party, my wife Chaz and I sometimes use the shorthand, 'good value for money,' which indicates guests expected to be entertaining. — Roger Ebert

Planning a dinner party in a way that you're actually capable of getting it done without panicking is important. It's bad hospitality for the host to be freaked out. — Ted Allen

It makes it really hard to just go to a dinner party because, in my work life, I'm surrounded by the funniest people, ever. I'm really spoiled. I laugh a lot, in my day. — Jenna Fischer

Marcel was from Louisiana, so for four years Emily had been southern by association. She insisted on Lynchburg Lemonades. She scheduled interviews around the Gators. She championed gentility. Anyone at a dinner party who thought they could tell a joke making fun of the region encountered a faceful of Emily, quick and ferocious as a convert, as a woman who loved a man.
Emily now had no claim to the South. The region and its interests would proceed without her. — Marie-Helene Bertino

Harry had never in all his life had such a Christmas dinner. A hundred fat, roast turkeys; mountains of roast and boiled potatoes; platters of chipolatas; tureens of buttered peas, silver boats of thick, rich gravy and cranberry sauce - and stacks of wizard crackers every few feet along the table. These fantastic party favors were nothing like the feeble Muggle ones the Dursleys usually bought, with their little plastic toys and their flimsy paper hats inside. Harry pulled a wizard cracker with Fred and it didn't just bang, it went off with a blast like a cannon and engulfed them all in a cloud of blue smoke, while from the inside exploded a rear admiral's hat and several live, white mice. Up at the High Table, Dumbledore had swapped his pointed wizard's hat for a flowered bonnet, and was chuckling merrily at a joke Professor Flitwick had just read him. Flaming — J.K. Rowling

In any restaurant, my eyes alight first, as if by an atavistic pull, on the meat dishes on the menu. In any dinner party I throw, I think of the non-vegetarian dish as central. I view this as a combination of weakness, greed and moral failure. Someone please help. — Neel Mukherjee

Remember that you must behave in life as at a dinner party. Is anything brought around to you? Put out your hand and take your share with moderation. Does it pass by you? Don't stop it. Is it not yet come? Don't stretch your desire towards it, but wait till it reaches you. — Epictetus

I sit at home and read books. I watch movies. I watch television. I go and play golf. I don't go to nightclubs. I don't go out to dinner that often. I'm not a big party guy. — Samuel L. Jackson

America is exceptional. Does that statement shock you? It shocks me to have to say it! To be forced by your doubt to say out loud that America is exceptional implies something ugly. It's like telling the host of a dinner party 'I'm certain your wife is a female.' Saying it out loud just feels wrong. No matter how big her hands are. — Stephen Colbert

A cocktail party is what you call it when you invite everyone you know to come over to your house at six p.m., put cigarettes out on your rug, and leave at eight to go somewhere more interesting for dinner without inviting you. — P. J. O'Rourke

A Finnan haddock has a relish of a peculiar and delicate flavour, inimitable on any other coast than that of Aberdeenshire. Some of our Edinburgh philosophers tried to produce their equal in vain. I was one of a party at dinner where the philosophical haddocks were placed in competition with the genuine Finnan fish. These were served round without distinguishing whence they came; but only one gentleman out of twelve present espoused the cause of philosophy. — Walter Scott

Loser"
"Father directed choir. When it paused on a Sunday,
he liked to loiter out morning with the girls;
then back to our cottage, dinner cold on the table,
Mother locked in bed devouring tabloid.
You should see him, white fringe about his ears,
bald head more biased than a billiard ball
he never left a party. Mother left by herself
I threw myself from her car and broke my leg ...
Years later, he said, 'How jolly of you to have jumped.'
He forgot me, mother replaced his name, I miss him.
When I am unhappy, I try to squeeze the hour
an hour or half-hour smaller than it is;
orphaned, I wake at midnight and pray for day
the lovely ladies get me through the day — Robert Lowell

Mixed dinner parties of ladies and gentlemenare very rare, which is a great defect in the society; not only as depriving themof the most social and hospitable manner of meeting, but as leading to frequent dinner parties of gentlemen without ladies, which certainly does not conduce to refinement. — Frances Trollope

However grand our sacramental downsittings and updressings may be, they remain only and precisely sacraments: real presences, under particular signs, of the happier order that faith can discover under any and all signs. They're a bit like the church. As long as we see them as an earnest of the kingdom, they're all right; when we put on airs and act as if they were the kingdom itself, they look just silly. — Robert Farrar Capon

Behave in life as at a dinner party. Is anything brought around to you? Put out your hand and take your share with moderation. Does it pass by you?
Do not stop it. Is it not yet come? Do not stretch your desire towards it, but wait till it reaches you. Do this with regard to children, to a spouse, to public post, to riches, and you will eventually be a worthy guest at the feast of life. — A.C. Grayling

Sigmund Freud makes people irritable. Whenever someone mentions Freud, say, at a dinner party, I see eyes roll and listen to the nasty remarks that follow. — Siri Hustvedt

I try to greet my friends with a drink in my hand, a warm smile on my face, and great music in the background, because that's what gets a dinner party off to a fun start. — Ina Garten

So today, I am tearing up my Introverts Anonymous card." Jake held out the card and tore it in two, handing the pieces to Charli. "I promise that I will get out and socialize now and then, and that Charli may schedule up to one dinner party per year, as long as the invitees are aware that they are free to stay home and read a book if they wish. — Al Macy

Whereas Jeremy is just the opposite: always moving because he's never really thinking of anything and the kind of guy you'd worry inviting to a dinner party because he says what he thinks. He can be insulting at times but doesn't mean to be. — Jason Schwartzman

Give me a small intimate gathering of five people, a dinner party, where one-on-one conversations can be had, where people talk about current events, good books, good food, and weird news. That was my idea of a good time. — Penny Reid

Telling people at a dinner party you drive a Nissan Almera is like telling them you've got the Ebola virus and you're about to sneeze. — Jeremy Clarkson

You wear your armor even to dinner, Lady Wilhelmina?"
"Of course I wear armor. I am sitting with a pirate, a mercenary, an adventurer, and a bounder. If a shot is not fired tonight, I daresay that your reputations are nothing but lies. — Meljean Brook

Loaves of fig and pepper bread, of course. But there was also lasagna cooked in miniature pumpkins, and pumpkin-seed brittle. Roasted red pepper soup, and spiced caramel potato cakes. Corn muffins and brown sugar popcorn balls and a dozen cupcakes, each with a different frosting, because what was first frost without frosting? Pear beer and clove ginger ale in dark bottles sat in the icy beverage tub. They ate well into the afternoon, and the more they ate, the more food there seemed to be. Pretzel buns and cranberry cheese and walnuts appearing, just when they thought they'd tasted everything. — Sarah Addison Allen

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