In big houses in which things are done properly, there is always the religious element. The diurnal cycle is observed with more feeling when there are servants to do the work.

Proust has pointed out that the predisposition to love creates its own objects; is this not also true of fear?

Plot is the knowing of destination.

If you look at life one way, there is always cause for alarm.

rudeness to Mrs. Dosely was like dropping a pat of butter on to a hot plate - it slid and melted away.

... in general, the Anglo-Irish do not make good dancers; they are too spritely and conscious; they are incapable of one kind of trance or of being seemingly impersonal. And, for the formal, pure dance they lack the formality: about their stylishness (for they have stylishness) there is something impromptu, slightly disorderly.

No object is mysterious. The mystery is your eye.