We may argue eloquently that 'Honesty is the best Policy' - unfortunately, the moment honesty is adopted for the sake of policy it mysteriously ceases to be honesty.

Plain lies are dangerous.

You're thinking that people don't keep up old jealousies for twenty years or so. Perhaps not. Not just primitive, brute jealousy. That means a word and a blow. But the thing that rankles is hurt vanity. That sticks. Humiliation. And we've all got a sore spot we don't like to have touched.

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.

Detective stories keep alive a view of the world which ought to be true. Of course people read them for fun ... But underneath they feed a hunger for justice ... you offer to divert them, and you show them by stealth the orderly world in which we should all try to be living.

Well-bred English people never have imagination.

There are crimes which the Law cannot reach.