There are houses whose souls have passed into the limbo of Time, leaving their bodies in the limbo of London. Such was not quite the condition of Timothy's on the Bayswater Road, for Timothy's soul still had one foot in Timothy Forsyte's body, and Smither kept the atmosphere unchanging, of camphor and port wine and house whose windows are only opened to air it twice a day.

Beginnings are always messy.

Memory heaps dead leaves on corpse-like deeds, from under which they do but vaguely offend the sense.

Take modern courtships! They resulted in the same thing as under George the Second, but took longer to reach it, owing to the motor-cycle and the standing lunch.

the biggest tragedy of life is the utter impossibility to change what you have done

Headlines twice the size of the events.

We are not living in a private world of our own. Everything we say and do and think has its effect on everything around us.