The English language has a deceptive air of simplicity; so have some little frocks; but they are both not the kind of thing you can run up in half an hour with a machine.

Even idiots ocasionally speak the truth accidentally.

But you see, I can believe a thing without understanding it. It's all a matter of training.

I am better off with vegetables at the bottom of my garden than with all the fairies of the Midsummer Night's Dream.

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.

The business of the artist is not to escape from his material medium or bully it, but to serve it; but to serve it, he must love it. If he does so, he will realise that in its service is perfect freedom.

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.