We should be wrong to demand that a critic must stay on the point all the time; it is enough if he remains in orbit around it.

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.

Never despise a drink because it is easy to make and/or uses commercial mixes. Unquestioning devotion to authenticity is, in any department of life, a mark of the naive - or worse.

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

[Science fiction is] that class of prose narrative treating of a situation that could not arise in the world we know, but which is hypothesised on the basis of some innovation in science or technology, or pseudo-science or pseudo-technology, whether human or extra-terrestrial in origin. It is distinguished from pure fantasy by its need to achieve verisimilitude and win the 'willing suspension of disbelief' through scientific plausibility.

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.

Self criticism must be my guide to action, and the first rule for its employment is that in itself it is not a virtue, only a procedure.