It's asking a great deal that things should appeal to your reason as well as your sense of the aesthetic. - William Somerset Maugham

Are you sure you can prevent yourself from falling in love one of these days? Such things do happen, you know, even to the most prudent men.'

Simon gave him a strange, one might even have thought a hostile, look.

I should tear it out of my heart as I'd wrench out of my mouth a rotten tooth.

if you'd ever had a grown-up daughter you'd know that by comparison a bucking steer is easy to manage. And as to knowing what goes on inside her - well, it's much better to pretend you're the simple, innocent old fool she almost certainly takes you for.

What has influenced my life more than any other single thing has been my stammer. Had I not stammered I would probably... have gone to Cambridge as my brothers did, perhaps have become a don and every now and then published a dreary book about French literature.