Ruth Eleanor "Peg" Bracken (February 25, 1918 – October 20, 2007) was an American author of humorous books on cooking, housekeeping, etiquette and travel.
When people say it's a funny thing about them, you will probably be able to control your hysterics. They are only getting ready to announce the shattering fact that they don't like something. And it's not going to be something that's really quite awful, like suttee or apartheid; it's going to be something small.
This wild emaciated look appeals to some women, though not to many men, who are seldom seen pinning up a Vogue illustration in a machine shop.
I didn't learn for years that you generally find your Self after you quit looking for it.
What most of us are after, when we have a picture taken, is a good natural-looking picture that doesn't resemble us.
It is important to remember that these are your Declining Years, in which you can jolly well decline to do what you don't feel like doing, unless not doing it would make you feel worse than doing it.
When there's a lot of it around, you never want it very much.
This is your dividing line, by the way, between child and nonchild - when the first trouble happens that Mama can't fix.
The same fire that hardens the egg will melt the butter; and much depends on the personality type, whether you customarily rise to a challenge or whether you sink. For as long as I can remember, I have been a sinker. One challenge, and I drop like a rock.
It is always a taut moment in a foreign country waiting to see if your English-speaking guide speaks English.
It's easier to find a traveling companion than to get rid of one.
How to Comfort Yourself When You Have Acted Like a Jackass Everyone does this occasionally, and you shouldn't feel too upset about it unless it happens quite often, such as three times a day, in which case you must simply get used to it. Remember, other people like you as well or better for it, because it makes them feel so superior; so you've spread a little sunshine. And at the very least, you've served as a bad example.
the most all-around, practical, long-wearing illusions are the ones that you weave yourself.
It is a rare expert who clearly realizes how inexpert someone else can be.
Some people collect paperweights, or pre-Columbian figures, or old masters, or young mistresses, or tombstone rubbings, or five-minute recipes, or any of a thousand other things. . . My own collection is sunrises; and I find that they have their advantages. Sunrises are usually handsome, they can't possibly be dusted, and they take only a little room, so long as it has a window to see them from.
Kitchens were different then, too - not only what came out of them, but their smells and sounds. A hot pie cooling smells different from a frozen pie thawing.
Cheese for dessert is rather like Paradise Lost in that everyone thinks he ought to like it, but still you don't notice too many people actually curling up with it.
a celebrity is someone who no longer does the things that made him a celebrity.
Many a restaurant seems to employ more copy writers than cooks.
. . . parents embarrass their children probably more than the other way around. I don't know why we should blush so hard for our parents -- we didn't rear them -- and yet we do.
Drinking: something to do while getting drunk.