I have sometimes thought that there is no being so venomous, so bloodthirsty as a professed philanthropist.

An author must be nothing if he do not love truth; a barrister must be nothing if he do.

When the ivy has found its tower, when the delicate creeper has found its strong wall, we know how the parasite plants grow and prosper.

Never think that you're not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. People will take you very much at your own reckoning.

Fame is a skittish jade, more fickle even than Fortune, and apt to shy, and bolt, and plunge away on very trifling causes.

What on earth could be more luxurious than a sofa, a book, and a cup of coffee?...Was ever anything so civil?

The habit of reading is the only one I know in which there is no alloy. It lasts when all other pleasures fade.

There is no way of writing well and also of writing easily.

It has now become the doctrine of a large clan of politicians that political honesty is unnecessary, slow, subversive of a man's interests, and incompatible with quick onward movement.

There is no royal road to learning; no short cut to the acquirement of any art.

Love is like any other luxury. You have no right to it unless you can afford it.

When sisters stand shoulder to shoulder, who stands a chance against us?

Perhaps crossing the barriers of time has freed me.

It hurt, and that is not a euphemism. It hurt like a beating.

Film and art are close together.

All that you are, all that I owe to you, justifies my love.

. . .I really ought to have recognized it for what it was and, perhaps, to have stopped right there - for it was nostalgia, and what inspires nostalgia has been dead a long time

a celebrity is someone who no longer does the things that made him a celebrity.

I love all of the Earth.

My ambition is not to be just a good fighter. I want to be great, something special.

I love a ballad but even too well if it be doleful matter merrily set down, or a very pleasant thing indeed and sung lamentably.