As Shakespeare says, if you're going to do a thing you might as well pop right at it and get it over.

Dark hair fell in a sweep over his forehead. He looked like a man who would write vers libre, as indeed he did.

One of the drawbacks to life is that it contains moments when one is compelled to tell the truth.

This was not Aunt Dahlia, my good and kindly aunt, but my Aunt Agatha, the one who chews broken bottles and kills rats with her teeth.

I remember her telling me once that rabbits were the gnomes in attendance to the Fairy Queen and that the stars were God's daisy chain. Perfect rot, of course.

Mr Howard Saxby, literary agent, was knitting a sock. He knitted a good deal, he would tell you if you asked him, to keep himself from smoking, adding that he also smoked a good deal to keep himself from knitting.

He felt like a man who, chasing rainbows, has had one of them suddenly turn and bite him in the leg.