The future of English fiction may rest with this Unknown Public - a reading public of three millions which lies right out of the pale of true literary civilization - which is now waiting to be taught the difference between a good book and a bad.

My business in life is to eat, drink, sleep, and die. Everything else is superfluity and I will have none of it.

I am thinking,’ he remarked quietly, ’whether I shall add to the disorder in this room, by scattering your brains about the fireplace.

The dull people decided years and years ago, as everyone knows, that novel-writing was the lowest species of literary exertion, and that novel reading was a dangerous luxury and an utter waste of time.

I have heard, as everybody else has, of a spirit's haunting a house ; but I have had my own personal experience of a house's haunting a spirit.

I have always held the old-fashioned opinion that the primary object of work of fiction should be to tell a story.

I am not against hasty marriages where a mutual flame is fanned by an adequate income.