A touch of science, even bogus science, gives an edge to the superstitious tale.

Some writers thrive on the contact with the commerce of success; others are corrupted by it. Perhaps, like losing one's virginity,it is not as bad (or as good) as one feared it was going to be.

Detective stories are the art-for-art's sake of yawning Philistinism.

Because of the influence of the cinema, most reports or stories of violence are so pictorial that they lack content or meaning. The camera brings them to our eyes, but does not settle them in our minds, nor in time.

The State, that cawing rookery of committees and subcommittees.

We do not wish to be better than we are, but more fully what we are.

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.