There are not many English novels which deserve to be called great: Parade's End is one of them.

In a game, just losing is almost as satisfying as just winning... In life the loser's score is always zero.

The glacier knocks in the cupboard, The desert sighs in the bed, And the crack in the teacup opens A lane to the land of the dead.

It is already possible to imagine a society in which the majority of the population, that is to say, its laborers, will have almost as much leisure as in earlier times was enjoyed by the aristocracy. When one recalls how aristocracies in the past actually behaved, the prospect is not cheerful.

Language is the mother, not the handmaiden, of thought; words will tell you things you never thought or felt before.

Of course, Behaviourism 'works'. So does torture. Give me a no-nonsense, down-to-earth behaviourist, a few drugs, and simple electrical appliances, and in six months I will have him reciting the Athanasian Creed in public.

Between friends differences in taste or opinion are irritating in direct proportion to their triviality.