The work is with me when I wake up in the morning; it is with me while I eat my breakfast in bed and run through the newspaper, while I shave and bathe and dress.

When a man who is drinking neat gin starts talking about his mother he is past all argument.

I'd rather be in trouble for having done something than for not having done anything.

I must be like the princess who felt the pea through seven mattresses; each book is a pea.

I did not ask for objections, but for comments, or helpful suggestions. I looked for more loyalty from you, Captain Hornblower.' That made the whole argument pointless. If Leighton only wanted servile agreement there was no sense in continuing.

The fools ran after me and I ran after the whores, foolish though I realized such a proceeding to be.

Clairvoyant, Hornblower could foresee that in a year's time, the world would hardy remember the incident. In twenty years, it would be entirely forgotten. Yet those headless corpses up there in Muzillac; those shattered redcoats; those Frenchmen caught in the four-pounder's blast of canister -- they were as dead as if it had been a day in which history had been changed.