Why it is that a garment which is honestly attractive in, say, 1910 should be honestly ridiculous a few years later and honestly charming again a few years later still is one of those things which are not satisfactorily to be explained and are therefore jolly and exciting and an addition to the perennial interest of life.
Margery AllinghamPeople don't alter. They may with enormous difficulty modify themselves, but they never really change.
Margery AllinghamI believe that an author who cannot control her characters is, like a mother who cannot control her children, not really fit to look after them.
Margery Allinghamthe relationship between the two men was something of a miracle in itself. It was a cordiality based, apparently, on complete non-comprehension cemented by a deep mutual respect for the utterly unknown. No two men saw less eye to eye and the result was unexpected harmony, as if a dog and a fish had mysteriously become friends and were proud each of the other's remarkable dissimilarity to himself.
Margery Allingham