New York is large, glamorous, easy-going, kindly and incurious, but above all it is a crucible - because it is large enough to be incurious.

The instances of honesty that one comes across in this world are just as amazing as the instances of dishonesty. After forty-five years of mixing with one's kind, one ought to have acquired the habit of being able to know something about one's fellow beings. But one doesn't

He added that a Frenchman in the train had given him a great sandwich that so stank of garlic that he had been inclined to throw it at the fellow's head.

I couldn't regard myself as personally repulsive. No man can, or, if he ever comes to do so, that is the end of him.

He thought he suddenly understood. For the Lincon-shire sergeant-major the word Peace meant that a man could stand up on a hill. For him it meant someone to talk to.

Six months ago I had never been to England, and, certainly, I had never sounded the depths of an English heart. I had known the shallows.

Why can't people have what they want? The things were all there to content everybody; yet everybody has the wrong thing.