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

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 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.

Miss Austen had shown the infinite possibilities of ordinary and present things for the novelist.

You rewrote the art in my heart.

It may be argued that the past is a country from which we have all emigrated, that its loss is part of our common humanity.

John Grady looked at the table. The paper cat stepped thin and slant among the shapes of cats thereon. He looked up again. Yessir, he said. Just me and him.

I think people are propelled towards violence, and what propels them is much more interesting than the actual act of violence itself.

Those numbers with Tony are so often and so interesting.

Your compassion is a weakness your enemies will not share.

Your network is your net worth.

So India’s problem turns out to be the world’s problem. What happened in India has happened in God’s name. The problem’s name is God.

On my early trips to London and Paris, in 2009, I started to shift to more wide-brimmed felt hats similar to Borsalinos and Stetsons.