Professional reviewers read so many bad books in the course of duty that they get an unhealthy craving for arresting phrases.

He was gifted with the sly, sharp instinct for self-preservation that passes for wisdom among the rich.

I have been in the scholastic profession long enough to know that nobody enters it unless he has some very good reason that he is anxious to conceal.

Most writers in the course of their careers become thick-skinned and learn to accept vituperation, which in any other profession would be unimaginably offensive, as a healthy counterpoise to unintelligent praise.

I don't believe that people would ever fall in love or want to be married if they hadn't been told about it. It's like abroad: no one would want to go there if they hadn't been told it existed.

Instead of this absurd division into sexes they ought to class people as static and dynamic.

We class schools into four grades: leading school, first-rate school, good school and school.