There comes a time when every scientist, even God, has to write off an experiment.

Human kindness is like a defective tap, the first gush may be impressive but the stream soon dries up.

First-class travel, provided one hasn't to pay for it oneself, is the most insidiously addictive of life's luxuries.

I am fifty years old and I have never known what it is to love. I can write those words, know them to be true, but feel only the regret that a tone-deaf man must feel because he can't appreicate music, a regret less keen because it is for something never known, not for something lost.

Crime fiction confirms our belief, despite some evidence to the contrary, that we live in a rational, comprehensible, and moral universe.

It's easy to get a reputation for wisdom. It's only necessary to live long, speak little and do less.

It is surely unreasonable to credit that only one small star in the immensity of the universe is capable of developing and supporting intelligent life. But we shall not get to them and they will not come to us.