We are all like Scheherazade's husband, in that we want to know what happens next.

Neanderthal man listened to stories, if one may judge by the shape of his skull.

The most successful career must show a waste of strength that might have removed mountains, and the most unsuccessful is not that of the man who is taken unprepared, but of him who has prepared and is never taken.

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

Why can't we be friends now?" said the other, holding him affectionately. "It's what I want. It's what you want." But the horses didn't want it — they swerved apart: the earth didn't want it, sending up rocks through which riders must pass single file; the temple, the tank, the jail, the palace, the birds, the carrion, the Guest House, that came into view as they emerged from the gap and saw Mau beneath: they didn't want it, they said in their hundred voices "No, not yet," and the sky said "No, not there.

Hope, politeness, the blowing of a nose, the squeak of a boot, all produce "boum.

I think - I think - I think how little they think what lies so near them.