What earthly good is golf? Life is stern and life is earnest. We live in a practical age. All around us we see foreign competition making itself unpleasant. And we spend our time playing golf? What do we get out of it? Is golf any use? That's what I'm asking you. Can you name me a single case where devotion to this pestilential pastime has done a man any practical good?

I shoved on a dressing-gown, and flew downstairs like a mighty, rushing wind.

Love has had a lot of press-agenting from the oldest times; but there are higher, nobler things than love.

Employers are like horses — they require management.

She looked as if she had been poured into her clothes and had forgotten to say 'when.'

Well, you know what the Fulham Road's like. If your top-hat blows off into it, it has about as much chance as a rabbit at a dogshow.

Rex Stout's narrative and dialogue could not be improved, and he passes the supreme test of being rereadable. I don't know how many times I have reread the Wolfe stories, but plenty. I know exactly what is coming and how it is all going to end, but it doesn't matter. That's writing.