To say a compliment well is a high art and few possess it.

The exquisitely bad is as satisfying to the soul as the exquisitely good. Only the mediocre is unendurable.

I don't believe any of you have ever read Paradise Lost, and you don't want to. That's something that you just want to take on trust. It's a classic ... something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.

One frequently only finds out how really beautiful a really beautiful woman is after considerable acquaintance with her; and the rule applies to Niagara Falls, to majestic mountains, and to mosques-especially to mosques.

If you've got a nice fresh corpse, fetch him out!

I am content to be a bric-a-bracker and a Ceramiker.

Nothing spoils a good story like the arrival of an eyewitness.