Parents. . . are sometimes a bit of a disappointment to their children. They don't fulfil the promise of their early years.

Dinner at the Huntercombes' possessed only two dramatic features - the wine was a farce and the food a tragedy.

One passes through the world knowing few, if any, of the important things about even the people with whom one has been from time to time in the closest intimacy.

On the stage . . . masks are assumed with some regard to procedure; in everyday life, the participants act their parts without consideration either for suitability of scene or for the words spoken by the rest of the cast: the result is a general tendency for things to be brought to the level of farce even when the theme is serious enough.

Self-pity is essentially humorless, devoid of that lightness of touch which gives understanding of life.

When people really hate one another, the tension within them can sometimes make itself felt throughout a room, like atmospheric waves, first hot, then cold, wafted backwards and forwards as if in an invisible process of air conditioning, creating a pervasive physical disturbance.

Parents. . . are sometimes a bit of a disappointment to their children. They don't fulfil the promise of their early years.