If there's a gun on the wall in act one, scene one, you must fire the gun by act three, scene two. If you fire a gun in act three, scene two, you must see the gun on the wall in act one, scene one.

I am dying. I haven't drunk champagne for a long time.

The past,' he thought, 'is linked with the present by an unbroken chain of events flowing one out of another.' And it seemed to him that he had just seen both ends of that chain; that when he touched one end the other quivered.

You only have to start a job of work to realize how few decent, honest folk there are about.

And only now, when he was gray-haired, had he fallen in love properly, thoroughly, for the first time in his life.

Oh, dreams! In one night, lying with one's eyes shut, one may sometimes live through more than ten years of happiness.

I confess I seldom commune with my conscience when I write.