[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.

I have a very hyper-sensitive sister, and when she saw in the papers the next day that I had proclaimed myself the daughter of an immigrant, she didn't like it at all, and was with difficulty deterred from writing to the press that my father might be an immigrant, but not hers.

no war really comes unexpectedly. The drums are beating long before a single shot is fired.

Money is what you'd get on beautifully without if only other people weren't so crazy about it.

[On social change:] What I say is that if one country is annexed by another, its nationality is not changed overnight. Social processes are often very, very slow.

We were good reformers, but we weren't good enough. We elected a candidate and then, busy with our own affairs, we left him hanging in mid-air. Reformers are such part-time pillars of society!

For twenty years it had been generally known that an insidious Lobby was maintained in Washington to influence legislation and executive action on behalf of vested interests. ... The lobby was a creature of darkness. It worked behind closed doors and whispered in corners. This ancient industry was one form of invisible government.

[On women getting the vote:] The newspapers, poor dears, looked of course for something very spectacular. But then newspapers are always apt to be more interested in phenomena like meteors than in the slow growth of a mighty tree. Wait ten years, and the politicians will one day wake up and say, 'Look who's here!