“Hypocrisy is the most difficult and nerve-racking vice that any man can pursue; it needs an unceasing vigilance and a rare detachment of spirit. It cannot, like adultery or gluttony, be practiced at spare moments; it is a whole-time job.”
“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.”
“Only a mediocre person is always at his best.”
“Tolerance is only another name for indifference.”
“People who ask for your criticism want only praise.”
“Perfection has one grave defect. It is apt to be dull.”
“The ideal has many names, and beauty is but one of them.”
“If you want to eat well in England, eat three breakfasts.”
“The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit.”
“We know our friends by their defects rather than their merits.”
“I would sooner read a timetable or a catalog than nothing at all.”
“I've always been interested in people, but I've never liked them.”
“Love is what happens to a man and woman who don't know each other.”
“The trouble with young writers is that they are all in their sixties.”
“It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who has lost it.”
“No egoism is so insufferable as that of the Christian with regard to his soul.”
“You are not angry with people when you laugh at them. Humor teaches tolerance.”
“You can do anything in this world if you are prepares to take the consequences.”
“Sometimes a man hits upon a place to which he mysteriously feels that he belongs.”
“There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately no one knows what they are.”
“Common sense and nature will do a lot to make the pilgrimage of life not too difficult.”
“It is well known that Beauty does not look with a good grace on the timid advances of Humor.”
“It is unfair to expect a politician to live in private up to the statements he makes in public.”
“The world is quickly bored by the recital of misfortune, and willing avoids the sight of distress.”
“Death is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it.”
“I can imagine no more comfortable frame of mind for the conduct of life than a humorous resignation.”
“The unfortunate thing about this world is that the good habits are much easier to give up than the bad ones.”
“Perfection is what American women expect to find in their husbands... but English women only hope to find in their butlers.”
“Death doesn't affect the living because it has not happened yet. Death doesn't concern the dead because they have ceased to exist.”
“It is dangerous to let the public behind the scenes. They are easily disillusioned and then they are angry with you, for it was the illusion they loved.”