There is no question of defence. I have always acted in accordance with the dictates of my conscience. I have nothing with which to reproach myself.

It is really a hard life. Men will not be nice to you if you are not good-looking, and women will not be nice to you if you are.

Downstairs in the lounge, by the third pillar from the left, there sits an old lady with a sweet, placid, spinsterish face and a mind that has plumbed the depths of human iniquity and taken it all as in the day's work....where crime is concerned, she's the goods.

Many friends have said to me, 'I never know when you write your books, because I've never seen you writing, or even seen you go away to write.' I must behave rather as dogs do when they retire with a bone; they depart in a secretive manner and you do not see them again for an odd half hour. They return self-consciously with mud on their noses. I do much the same.

Real evidence is usually vague and unsatisfactory. It has to be examined---sifted. But here the whole thing is cut and dried. No, my friend, this evidence has been very cleverly manufactured---so cleverly that it has defeated its own ends.

Oh, no, I'm not brave. When a thing is certain, there's nothing to be brave about. All you can do is to find your consolation.

Nobody knows what another person is thinking. They may imagine they do, but they are nearly always wrong.