The Channel is a slipper-bath of irony through which we pass these serious Continentals in order not to be infected by their gloom. - Alan Bennett

That's a bit like asking a man crawling across the Sahara whether he would prefer Perrier or Malvern water.

Kafka could never have written as he did had he lived in a house. His writing is that of someone whose whole life was spent in apartments, with lifts, stairwells, muffled voices behind closed doors, and sounds through walls. Put him in a nice detached villa and he’d never have written a word.

Polly: Question is whether you hate the coach party because they're like the dogs or hate the dogs because they're like the coach party.