We are in a strange period of history in which a revolutionary has to be a patriot and a patriot has to be a revolutionary.

It was soon noticed that when ever there was work to be done the cat could never be found.

Good novels are not written by orthodoxy-sniffers, nor by people who are conscience-stricken about their own unorthodoxy. Good novels are written by people who are not frightened.

There is only one way to make money at writing, and that is to marry a publisher's daughter.

It was almost normal for people over thirty to be frightened of their own children

It is the same in all wars; the soldiers do the fighting, the journalists do the shouting, and no true patriot ever gets near a front-line trench, except on the briefest of propaganda tours.

If you ask any ordinary reader which of Dickens's proletarian characters he can remember, the three he is almost certain to mention are Bill Sykes, Sam Weller and Mrs. Gamp. A burglar, a valet and a drunken midwife-not exactly a representative cross-section of the English working class.