A guest is a jewel on the cushion of hospitality

A man may debar nonsense from his library of reason, but not from the arena of his impulses.

A person who does not read cannot think. He may have good mental processes, but he has nothing to think about. You can feel for people or natural phenomena and react to them, but they are not ideas. You cannot think about them.

I love to make a mistake. It is my only assurance that I cannot reasonably be expected to assume the responsibility of omniscience.

The trouble with an alarm clock is that what seems sensible when you set it seems absurd when it goes off

A Dickens character to me is a theatrical projection of a character. Not that it isn't real. It's real, but in that removed sense. But Sherlock Holmes is simply there. I would be astonished if I went to 221½ B Baker Street and didn't find him.

The only thing I want is something I can't have; and that is to know if, 100 years from now, people will still buy my books.