Always get to the dialogue as soon as possible. I always feel the thing to go for is speed. Nothing puts the reader off more than a big slab of prose at the start.

Red hair, sir, in my opinion, is dangerous.

Do men who have got all their marbles go swimming in lakes with their clothes on?

Intoxicated? The word did not express it by a mile. He was oiled, boiled, fried, plastered, whiffled, sozzled, and blotto.

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.

Chumps always make the best husbands. All the unhappy marriages come from the husbands having brains.

...with each new book of mine I have always the feeling that this time I have picked a lemon in the garden of literature.