If there was a little room somewhere in the British Museum that contained only about twenty exhibits and good lighting, easy chairs, and a notice imploring you to smoke, I believe I should become a museum man.

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.

Living in an age of advertisement, we are perpetually disillusioned. The perfect life is spread before us every day, but it changes and withers at a touch.

I'm in the business of providing people with secondary satisfactions. It wouldn't have done me much good if they had all written their own plays, would it?

Our trouble is that we drink too much tea. I see in this the slow revenge of the Orient, which has diverted the Yellow River down our throats.

Western man is schizophrenic.

Childhood, catching our imagination when it is fresh and tender, never lets go of us.