The trouble with young writers is that they are all in their sixties.

A woman may be as wicked as she likes, but if she isn't pretty it won't do her much good.

But Philip was impatient with himself; he called to mind his idea of the pattern of life: the unhappiness he had suffered was no more than part of a decoration which was elaborate and beautiful; he told himself strenuously that he must accept with gaiety everything, dreariness and excitement, pleasure and pain, because it added to the richness of the design.

A good story is obviously a difficult thing to invent, but its difficulty is a poor reason for despising it.

The mystic sees the ineffable, and the psychopathologist the unspeakable.

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.

You can do anything in this world if you are prepared to take the consequences.