To escape jury duty in England, wear a bowler hat and carry a copy of the Daily telegraph.

All the flower children were as alike as a congress of accountants and about as interesting.

The point at which beliefs meet may be more significant, more useful to contemplate, than their sources.

I'd been told of all the things you're meant to feel when your father dies. Sudden freedom, growing up, the end of dependence, the step into the sunlight when no one is taller than you and you're in no one's shadow. I know what I felt. Lonely.

I knew nothing about farce until I read Puce a l'Oreille, and had no idea what a deadly serious business it is.

Rumpole, you must move with the times." "If I don't like the way the times are moving, I shall refuse to accompany them.

The main aim of education should be to send children out into the world with a reasonably sized anthology in their heads so that, while seated on the lavatory, waiting in doctors' surgeries, on stationary trains or watching interviews with politicians, they may have something interesting to think about.