People are content to wait a long time for salvation, but prefer dinner to turn up inside an hour.

A marriage is always made up of two people who are prepared to swear that only the other one snores.

What was the point of education, he thought, if people went out afterward and used it?

Books bend space and time. One reason the owners of those aforesaid little rambling, poky secondhand bookshops always seem slightly unearthly is that many of them really are, having strayed into this world after taking a wrong turning in their own bookshops in worlds where it is considered commendable business practice to wear carpet slippers all the time and open your shop only when you feel like it.

A European says: I can't understand this, what's wrong with me? An American says: I can't understand this, what's wrong with him? I make no suggestion that one side or other is right, but observation over many years leads me to believe it is true.

It was like being in a Jane Austen novel, but one with far less clothing.

A good plan isn't one where someone wins, it's where nobody thinks they've lost.