The hospitable instinct is not wholly altruistic. There is pride and egoism mixed up with it.

There is much to be said for failure. It is more interesting than success.

To mankind in general Macbeth and Lady Macbeth stand out as the supreme type of all that a host and hostess should not be.

Have you noticed ... there is never any third act in a nightmare? They bring you to a climax of terror and then leave you there. They are the work of poor dramatists.

I am a Tory anarchist. I should like everyone to go about doing just as he pleased - short of altering any of the things to which I have grown accustomed.

I have known no man of genius who had not to pay, in some affliction or defect, either physical or spiritual, for what the gods had given him.

The critic who justly admires all kinds of things simultaneously cannot love any one of them.