Properly understood, style is not a seductive decoration added to a functional structure; it is of the essence of a work of art. The necessary elements of style are lucidity, elegance, and individuality; these three qualities combine to form a preservative which ensures the nearest approximation to permanence in the fugitive art of letters.

I prefer all but the very worst travel books, to all but the very best novels.

We cherish our friends not for their ability to amuse us, but for ours to amuse them...

Words should be an intense pleasure just as leather should be to a shoemaker.

Never get mixed up in a Welsh wrangle. It doesn't end in blows like an Irish one, but goes on forever.

Her heart was broken perhaps, but it was a small inexpensive organ of local manufacture. In a wider and grander way she felt things had been simplified.

Its theme-- the operation of divine grace on a group of diverse but closely connected characters-- was perhaps presumptuously large, but I make no apology for it.