Every major question in history is a religious question. It has more effect in molding life than nationalism or a common language.

There is no one who has cooked but has discovered that each particular dish depends for its rightness upon some little point which he is never told. It is not only so of cooking: it is so of splicing a rope; of painting a surface of wood; of mixing mortar; of almost anything you like to name among the immemorial human arts.

Matilda told such dreadful lies, It made one gasp and stretch one's eyes Her aunt, who, from her earliest youth, Had kept a strict regard for truth, Attempted to believe Matilda The effort very nearly killed her.

Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine, There’s always laughter and good red wine. At least I’ve always found it so. Benedicamus Domino!

The sea drives truth into a man like salt.

I am writing a book about the Crusades so dull that I can scarcely write it.

I shoot the Hippopotamus with bullets made of platinum, because if I use the leaden one his hide is sure to flatten em.