Madam Walker was a master marketer. But her brilliance was in taking it to another level by training women, by traveling, by making very motivational speeches and by providing independent income for women who otherwise would have to be maids and sharecroppers.
There are five great ages of man - five moments when you need to reevaluate everything, clear out the cupboard and the wardrobe, and most importantly, your head. They are 13, 20, 30, 40 and 60. All men need to know this.
As handbags get ever more absurdly large, so they need to carry more stuff to validate the expense of this huge trunk with chains, buckles and padlocks on.
Trying to learn to be a good man is like learning to play tennis against a wall. You are only a good man - a competent, capable, interesting and lovable man - when you're doing it for, or with, other people.
I'm too vain to go on TV. I'd be a monster of self-consciousness. Plus, I've got a ridiculous voice - I sound like a camp friend of Bertie Wooster's.
Only people who live outside cities realize the size of them. London turns out to be huge; there are great swaths, vast panoramas, a whole diaspora I'd never imagined. The place I live in tends to be manageably small, a few familiar journeys and destinations.
Men and women understand different things about personal boundaries. What men call privacy, women know as secrecy.
I'm frightened of my innate vanity. I mean: the suits lined with scarves? Even I know the warning signs. I could quite easily end up in a tiny Playboy mansion, all on my own.
For men, privacy means not being told stuff that would hurt. For women, secrecy is having stuff go on behind your back.
One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries.
