Your function as a critic is to show that it is really you yourself who should have written the book, if you had had the time, and since you hadn't you are glad that someone else had, although obviously it might have been done better.

Each of us can, by ploy or gambit, most naturally gain the advantage.

Talk of the imperial decay of your invalid port. Its gracious withdrawal from perfection, keeping a hint of former majesty withal, as it hovers between oblivion and the divine Untergang of infinite recession.

Cogg would suddenly stand stock still. "Listen," he would say. Some feeble quack would be heard from the willow beyond the pond. "That's an easy one to tell. The frog-pippit." Then he would add, As a safety measure, "As I believe they call it in these parts."

Never say the number because it suggest that you are unable to pronounce the name of the wine you are ordering.

In lawn tennis mixed, the basic chivalry move is to pretend to serve less fiercely to the woman than to the man. This is particularly useful if your first service tends to be out in any case.

Your function as a critic is to show that it is really you yourself who should have written the book, if you had had the time, and since you hadn't you are glad that someone else had, although obviously it might have been done better.