A single person is a manageable entity, whom you can either make friends with or leave alone. But half of a married couple is not exactly a whole human being: if the marriage is successful it is something a little more than that; if unsuccessful, a little less. In either case, a fresh complication is added to the already intricate business of friendship: as Clem had once remarked, you might as well try to dance a tarantella with a Siamese twin.

I can't abide cats myself, but of course we have to have one in the kitchen to deal with the mice. I insisted on getting a black one, because anything else shows the dirt so in London.

Words were the only net to catch a mood, the only sure weapon against oblivion.

swans ... always look as though they'd just been reading their own fan-mail.

to achieve unity without uniformity is the whole essence of the democratic way of life.

Constructive destruction is one of the most delightful employments in the world, and in civilized life the opportunities for it are only too rare.

Nature has decreed that for what men suffer by having to shave, be killed in battle, and eat the legs of chickens, women make amends by housekeeping, childbirth, and writing all the letters for both of them.