I started violently, as if some unseen hand had goosed me.

One of the Georges - I forget which - once said that a certain number of hours´ sleep each night - I cannot recall at the moment how many - made a man something which for the time being has slipped my memory.

There are three things in the world that he held in the smallest esteem - slugs, poets and caddies with hiccups.

He had just about enough intelligence to open his mouth when he wanted to eat, but certainly no more.

I am strongly of the opinion that, after the age of twenty-one, a man ought not to be out of bed and awake at four in the morning. The hour breeds thought. At twenty-one, life being all future, it may be examined with impunity. But, at thirty, having become an uncomfortable mixture of future and past, it is a thing to be looked at only when the sun is high and the world full of warmth and optimism.

Like so many substantial citizens of America, he had married young and kept on marrying, springing from blonde to blonde like the chamois of the Alps leaping from crag to crag.

Well, you know, there are limits to the sacred claims of friendship.