You never find an Englishman among the under-dogs except in England, of course.

O God, if there is a God, forgive him his sins, if there is such a thing as sin.

Anyone could write a novel given six weeks, pen paper, and no telephone or wife.

I [had] added another small piece to the pages of the atlas that were real to me.

Suffering is none the less acute and much more lasting when it is put into words.

He had no strength for any other war than his own solitary struggle to keep alive.

We can trace almost all the disasters of English history to the influence of Wales.

Aesthetic value is often the by-product of the artist striving to do something else.

Manners are especially the need of the plain. The pretty can get away with anything.

Soon someone would say the fatal words, "Well, I think it’s time for me to go to bed.

We cherish our friends not for their ability to amuse us, but for ours to amuse them.

The great charm in argument is really finding one's own opinions, not other people's.

It doesn't matter what people call you unless they call you pigeon pie and eat you up.

We cherish our friends not for their ability to amuse us, but for ours to amuse them...

I think to be oversensitive about cliches is like being oversensitive about table manners.

I have no technical psychological interest; it is drama, speech,and events that interest me.

Instead of this absurd division into sexes they ought to class people as static and dynamic.

We class schools into four grades: leading school, first-rate school, good school and school.

That's the public-school system all over. They may kick you out, but they never let you down.

Free as air; that's what they say- "free as air". Now they bring me my air in an iron barrel.

Wine is a bride who brings a great dowry to the man who woos her persistently and gracefully.

that is not the last word; it is not even an apt word; it is a dead word from ten years back.

All this fuss about sleeping together. For physical pleasure I'd sooner go to my dentist any day.

The languor of Youth - how unique and quintessential it is! How quickly, how irrecoverably, lost!

Art is the symbol of the two noblest human efforts: to construct and to refrain from destruction.

I think it's one of the kindest things you can do to the very wicked, to give them time to repent.

For in that city [New York] there is neurosis in the air which the inhabitants mistake for energy.

Saints are simply men & women who have fulfilled their natural obligation which is to approach God.

One forgets words as one forgets names. One's vocabulary needs constant fertilizing or it will die.

My unhealthy affection for my second daughter has waned. Now I despise all my seven children equally.

Of children as of procreation -- the pleasure momentary, the posture ridiculous, the expense damnable

Never get mixed up in a Welsh wrangle. It doesn't end in blows like an Irish one, but goes on forever.

He was gifted with the sly, sharp instinct for self-preservation that passes for wisdom among the rich.

Only when one has lost all curiosity about the future has one reached the age to write an autobiography.

If we can't stamp out literature in the country, we can at least stop its being brought in from outside.

These memories, which are my life--for we possess nothing certainly except the past--were always with me.

I am annoyed to find myself continually described by people whom I have never set eyes on as bad-tempered.

I did not know it was possible to be so miserable and live but I am told that this is a common experience.

A typical triumph of modern science to find the only part of Randolph that was not malignant and remove it.

An artist must be a reactionary. He has to stand out against the tenor of the age and not go flopping along.

I think there's almost nothing I can't excuse except perhaps worshiping graven images. That seems to be idiotic.

At first it was impressive, but after half and hour deadly monotonous. It was like everything German - overdone.

I haven't been to sleep for over a year. That's why I go to bed early. One needs more rest if one doesn't sleep.

Once you start changing a name, you see, there's no reason ever to stop. One always hears one that sounds better.

Words have basic inalienable meanings, departure from which is either conscious metaphor or inexcusable vulgarity.

She had heard someone say something about an Independent Labour Party, and was furious that she had not been asked.

My children weary me. I can only see them as defective adults: feckless, destructive, frivolous, sensual, humorless.

I do not believe the expenditure of $2.50 for a book entitles the purchaser to the personal friendship of the author.

Every Englishman abroad, until it is proved to the contrary, likes to consider himself a traveller and not a tourist.

The anguished suspense of watching the lips you hunger for, framing the words, the death sentence, of sheer triteness!

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