...in those days children were rather out of fashion.

In the break-up of a marriage the world inclines to take the side of the partner with most vitality, rather than the one apparently least to blame.

He [Widmerpool] moistened his lips, though scarcely perceptibly. I thought his mixture of secretiveness and curiosity quite intolerable.

Anyway, what can one do here? I am seriously thinking of running away and joining the Foreign Legion or the North-West Mounted Police—whichever work the shorter hours.

I have finally come to realize that it’s being forced to be honest with myself that’s made my pain painful all along.

The interior landscape responds to the character and subtlety of the exterior landscape; the shape of the individual mind is affected by the land as it is by genes.

I think people should be allowed to do anything they want. We haven't tried that for a while. Maybe this time it'll work.

There is the old boys' club, but there are ­people who are "conviction lobbyists" coming from the heart.

If my luck held, it wouldn't be a handsome Greek demigod looking for the love of his life or at least his love of a couple of hours.

If you want to learn about the whole government and how it operates, the Appropriations Committee is the best place to learn it.

Can I bite you here, too?

Chaos has come to be associated with the study of anything complex, but, in fact, the mathematical techniques are directly applicable only to simple systems that appear to be complex.

What of fame? Everybody knows your name: never again are you alone.