I had always imagined that Cliché was a suburb of Paris, until I discovered it to be a street in Oxford.

The work of Henry James has always seemed divisible by a simple dynastic arrangement into three reigns: James I, James II, and the Old Pretender

Autobiography is an unrivaled vehicle for telling the truth about other people.

Biography is a very definite region bounded on the north by history, on the south by fiction, on the east by obituary, and on the west by tedium.

People who jump to conclusions rarely alight on them.

The detective story is the normal recreation of noble minds.

The preface is the most important part of a book. Even reviewers read a preface.