The difference between farce and humour in literature is, I suppose, that farce strums louder and louder on one string, while humour varies its note, changes its key, grows and spreads and deepens until it may indeed reach tragic depths.

[London] is sentimental and tolerant. The attitude to foreigners is like the attitude to dogs: Dogs are neither human nor British, but so long as you keep them under control, give them their exercise, feed them, pat them, you will find their wild emotions are amusing, and their characters interesting.

The peculiar foreign superstition that the English do not like love, the evidence being that they do not talk about it.

Sooner or later, the great men turn out to be all alike. They never stop working. They never lose a minute. It is very depressing.

It's very important to feel foreign. I was born in England, but when I'm being a writer, everyone in England is foreign to me.

On one plane, the very great writers and the popular romancers of the lower order always meet. They use all of themselves, helplessly, unselectively. They are above the primness and good taste of declining to give themselves away.

It is exciting and emancipating to believe we are one of nature's latest experiments, but what if the experiment is unsuccessful?