But some of us are beginning to pull well away, in our irritation, from...the exquisite tasters, the vintage snobs, the three-star Michelin gourmets. There is, we feel, a decent area somewhere between boiled carrots and Beluga caviare, sour plonk and Chateau Lafitte, where we can take care of our gullets and bellies without worshipping them.

We must beware the revenge of the starved senses, the embittered animal in its prison.

A loving wife will do anything for her husband except stop criticizing him and trying to improve him.

Many a man is praised for his reserve and so-called shyness when he is simply too proud to risk making a fool of himself.

Living in an age of advertisement, we are perpetually disillusioned.

California, that advance post of our civilization, with its huge aircraft factories, TV and film studios, automobile way of life... its flavourless cosmopolitanism, its charlatan philosophies and religions, its lack of anything old and well-tried rooted in tradition and character.

Most writers enjoy two periods of happiness when a glorious idea comes to mind and, secondly, when a last page has been written and you haven't had time to know how much better it ought to be.