Feeling a tremendous rakehell, and not liking myself much for it, and feeling rather a good chap for not liking myself much for it, and not liking myself at all for feeling rather a good chap.

It is natural and harmless in English to use a preposition to end a sentence with.

A blonde girl wearing a man's shirt but in all other visible respects unmanly to the point of outright effeminacy.

When I find someone I respect writing about an edgy, nervous wine that dithered in the glass, I cringe. When I hear someone I don't respect talking about an austere, unforgiving wine, I turn a bit austere and unforgiving myself. When I come across stuff like that and remember about the figs and bananas, I want to snigger uneasily. You can call a wine red, and dry, and strong, and pleasant. After that, watch out.

How wrong people always were when they said: 'It's better to know the worst than go on not knowing either way.' No; they had it exactly the wrong way round. Tell me the truth, doctor, I'd sooner know. But only if the truth is what I want to hear.

If there's one word that sums up everything that's gone wrong since the war, it's Workshop. After Youth, that is.

A German wine label is one of the things life's too short for, a daunting testimony to that peculiar nation's love of detail and organization.