When starting to think about any novel, part of the motive is: I'm going to show them, this time.

Education is one thing and instruction, however worthy, necessary and incidentally or monetarily educative, another.

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.

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

I'll pour you the first one and after that, if you don't have one, it's your own f****** fault. You know where it 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.

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