the announcement that you are going to tell a good story (and the chuckle that precedes it) is always a dangerous opening.

There is nothing more perplexing in life than to know at what point you should surrender your intellect to your faith.

[On Austen Chamberlain:] He is more loyal to his friends than to his convictions.

[To Jean Harlow, who repeatedly mispronounced her first name:] No, no, Jean. The t is silent, as in Harlow.

He couldn't see a belt without hitting below it.

I was born in the country of Hogg and Scott between the Yarrow and the Tweed, in the year 1864.

Truthfulness with me is hardly a virtue. I cannot discriminate between truths that and those that don't need to be told.