Very notable was his distinction between coarseness and vulgarity, coarseness, revealing something; vulgarity, concealing something.

Have you ever noticed that there are people who do things which are most indelicate, and yet at the same time - beautiful?

A happy ending was imperative. I shouldn't have bothered to write otherwise. I was determined that in fiction anyway two men should fall in love and remain in it for the ever and ever that fiction allows, and in this sense, Maurice and Alec still roam the greenwood.

This element of surprise or mystery the detective element as it is sometimes rather emptily called is of great importance in a plot.

In the novel we can know people perfectly, and, apart from the general pleasure of reading, we can find here a compensation for their dimness in life.

Railway termini are our gates to the glorious and the unknown

Art for art's sake? I should think so, and more so than ever at the present time. It is the one orderly product which our middling race has produced. It is the cry of a thousand sentinels, the echo from a thousand labyrinths, it is the lighthouse which cannot be hidden. It is the best evidence we can have of our dignity.