The ideal of a perfectly functioning democracy is one person, one vote; the ideal of a perfectly functioning market is one dollar, one vote.It's a hoary superstition that democratically elected governments invariably function as instruments of the collective will.A society in which consumption has to be artificially stimulated in order to keep production going is a society founded on trash and waste.

In the world it is called Tolerance, but in hell it is called Despair...the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die.

I always have a quotation for everything - it saves original thinking.

Sex is every man's loco spot ... he'll take a disappointment, but not a humiliation.

the heaviest restriction upon the freedom of public opinion is not the official censorship of the Press, but the unofficial censorship by a Press which exists not so much to express opinion as to manufacture it.

A passage is not plain English - still less is it good English - if we are obliged to read it twice to find out what it means.

There certainly does seem a possibility that the detective story will come to an end, simply because the public will have learnt all the tricks.