The Book of History is the Bible of Irony.

The Italian prose tale had begun to exercise that influence as early as Chaucer's time: but circumstances and atmosphere were as yet unfavourable for its growth.

Alcoholic drinks, rightly used, are good for body and soul alike, but as a restorative of both there is nothing like brandy.

Nothing is more curious than the almost savage hostility that Humour excites in those who lack it.

The hardest thing to attain... is the appreciation of difference without insisting on superiority.

It is the unbroken testimony of all history that alcoholic liquors have been used by the strongest, wisest, handsomest, and in every way best races of all times.

I do not think anything serious should be done after dinner, as nothing should be before breakfast.

When people cannot write good literature it is perhaps natural that they should lay down rules how good literature should be written.

When [wines] were good they pleased my sense, cheered my spirits, improved my moral and intellectual powers, besides enabling me to confer the same benefits on other people. (Notes on a Cellar Book)

But the eighteenth century, on the whole, loathed melancholy.

But even gold is not everything: and only a fanatic, and a rather foolish fanatic, would say that this style of fiction summed up and exhausted all the good that fiction could give and do.

If you have to choose between character and reputation. Choose character every single time. Then you can be authentic and straight. Nothing to lose.

Because fear kills everything," Mo had once told her. "Your mind, your heart, your imagination.

I'm a father of four girls and I know very much about the relationship between a father and his daughters.

The haiku lets meaning float; the aphorism pins it down.

Unlike the ambiguity of life, the ambiguity of language does reach a limit.

Flattery is the infantry of negotiation.

I'll buy myself some plastic water, I should have married Lennon's daughter.

...in words and pickles, I have immortalized my memories, although distortions are inevitable in both methods. We must live, I'm afraid, with the shadows of imperfections.

I was physically abused and I retaliated.

I think on a national level your Department of Law there in the White House would look at some of the things that we've been charged with and automatically throw them out.