Art should be appreciated with passion and violence, not with a tepid, depreciating elegance that fears the censoriousness of a common room.

When I was young I was amazed at Plutarch's statement that the elder Cato began at the age of eighty to learn Greek. I am amazed no longer. Old age is ready to undertake tasks that youth shirked because they would take too long.

It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.

Cronshaw stopped for a moment to drink. He had pondered for twenty years the problem whether he loved liquor because it made him talk or whether he loved conversation because it made him thirsty.

The passing moment is all we can be sure of; it is only common sense to extract its utmost value from it.

Men seek but one thing in life - their pleasure.

It has been said that good prose should resemble the conversation of a well-bred man.