Authors: Bill Adler
A hat-fitter was overwhelmed by the size of her head. She replied, “Don’t worry, there’s really very little inside.”
She turned to an army officer when she was about to drive a tank and said, “I hope it’s well insured.”
After seeing the London premiere of the movie
Wall Street,
which featured some scenes of steamy sex, she said, “It was much too grown-up for me. I didn’t really understand any of it.”
When friends Richard and Joan Branson got married after fourteen years and two children, Diana sent a note: “A million congratulations. I am so glad you took the time to think about it.”
Diana, an avid swimmer, was asked how she got the chlorine smell out of her hair. “Haven’t you heard of shampoo?” she teased.
To inquiring Japanese journalists, she explained, “I don’t know why there are all these stories saying I am too thin. I am eating a lot.”
Diana openly enjoyed the company of gay men. She enjoyed camping it up herself. “You’d better call me Diana, because I’m a princess and everyone else in the room is a queen.” The gym she went to in the last few years was effectively a gay gym. When the owner, Michael Fenton, offered to stop other members coming in when she was there, she declined. “I like you boys,” she said.
“I find it much easier to have a female friendship than a friendship with a man. I am always being followed, which makes it very difficult.”
She often asked Palace employees, “Have you any jokes for me?”
“I feel my roots are in Norfolk. I have always loved it there.”
She was very well organized: “I do all my Christmas shopping in October.”
Diana told a close friend about her astrologer, Penny Thornton: “Penny was a revelation to me. She made me totally rethink my life. She taught me things about myself I never knew. And her suggestion I should use my own marital difficulties to channel positive ideas into helping others gave me a new direction to my life. That’s why I so love my work with Relate [Britain’s guidance-counseling service]. I feel I can actually help other people, and that makes me feel so good inside. She has been a godsend.”
“I hate my nose. It’s so large. One day I am going to have my conk done.”