It is the first duty of a gentleman to remember in the morning who he went to bed with the night before.

Lawyers enjoy a little mystery, you know. Why, if everybody came forward and told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth straight out, we should all retire to the workhouse.

He was so crooked, you could have used his spine for a safety-pin.

The rule seemed to be that a great woman must either die unwed ... or find a still greater man to marry her. ... The great man, on the other hand, could marry where he liked, not being restricted to great women; indeed, it was often found sweet and commendable in him to choose a woman of no sort of greatness at all.

The young were always theoretical; only the middle-aged could realize the deadliness of principles.

I know what an Act to make things simpler means. It means that the people who drew it up don't understand it themselves and that every one of its clauses needs a law-suit to disentangle it.

the autobiography is at one and the same time a single element in the series of the writer's created works and an interpretation of the whole series.