Quotes
I simply regard romantic comedies as a subgenre of sci-fi, in which the world created therein has different rules than my regular human world. …. There is no difference between Ripley from Alien and any Katherine Heigl character.
Without a standing army, a king is just a windbag in fancy clothes.
p. 263
They measure rank as Mussolini did, by the amount of carpet between door and desk.
p. 133
Nothing gets dated faster than a joke.
There had been many definitions of Man; he would make another: “The noise-producing animal.”
p. 53
The organ pealed forth, though never except in fiction does it do this, rather blaring and bursting, or in more refined cases quavering. In every heart began to spring that exquisite hope, seldom if ever realised, that the bride will have had a fit, or eloped with someone else.
p. 42
I don’t like to contaminate a good story with truth, Em. That’d be a violation of my artistic integrity, wouldn’t it?
The cardinal used to say, the English will forgive a king anything, until he tries to tax them.
p. 332
When have I, when have I ever forced anyone to do anything, he starts to say: but Richard cuts in, “No, you don’t, I agree, it’s just that you are practiced at persuading, and sometimes it’s quite difficult, sir to distinguish being persuaded by you from being knocked down in street and stamped on.”
p. 406
Gambling is not a vice, if you can afford to do it.
p. 376
"The thing to do with embarrassment," he told the young American couple who seemed determined to engage him, "is work it all the way to humiliation."
p. 116
The universe contains any amount of horrible ways to be woken up, such as the noise of the mob breaking down the front door, the scream of fire engines, or the realization that today is the Monday which on Friday night was a comfortably long way off. (p. 193)
