Do you absolutely despise me, Walter?" "No." He hesitated and his voice was strange. "I despise myself.

The prestige you acquire by being able to tell your friends that you know famous men proves only that you are yourself of small account.

So long as some are strong and some are weak, the weak will be driven to the wall.

Heaven knows what pains the author has been at, what bitter experience he has endured and what heartache suffered, to give some chance reader a few hours' relaxation or to while away the tedium of a journey.

Make him laugh and he will think you a trivial fellow, but bore him in the right way and your reputation is assured.

When she liked anyone it was quite natural for her to go to bed with him. She never thought twice about it. It was not vice; it wasn't lasciviousness; it was her nature. She gave herself as naturally as the sun gives heat or the flowers their perfume. It was a pleasure to her and she liked to give pleasure to others.

Truth is not only stranger than fiction, it is more telling. To know that a thing actually happened gives it a poignancy, touches a chord, which a piece of acknowledged fiction misses. It is to touch this chord that some authors have done everything they could to give you the impression that they are telling the plain truth.