They [zebras] looked like highly varnished animated toys.

The great point about money was to convert it as quickly as possible into something you could use or enjoy.

One of the stock Sydney jokes is of the census-taker who enquires: 'How many children have you, ma'am?' 'Two living and three in Melbourne.'

Only man is not content to leave things as they are but must always be changing them, and when he has done so, is seldom satisfied with the result.

To deceive gracefully is the very essence of social life. One must start by deceiving oneself, and make a lifelong practice of deceiving others; if one does it well enough, in time one might even become an artist, the greatest illusionists of all.

You cannot sell a blemished apple in the supermarket, but you can sell a tasteless one provided it is shiny, smooth, even, uniform and bright.

English tradition debars from dinner-table conversation almost all topics that might interest the conversers and insists upon strict adherence to banalities.