London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained.

A dog reflects the family life. Whoever saw a frisky dog in a gloomy family, or a sad dog in a happy one? Snarling people have snarling dogs, dangerous people have dangerous ones.

Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius.

Where there is no imagination there is no horror.

The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.

It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.

It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.

Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent.

I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose.

When the impossible has been eliminated, all that remains no matter how improbable is possible.

Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science, and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional manner.

Drink freely the wine life offers you and don't worry how much you spill.

Every emotion we feel is like one drop of rain in our heart. When our heart rain starts to overflow, it leaks out the window to our soul as a tear.

Wisdom doesn't teach fools for long.

The more especially, as in my juvenile frankness, I took some credit to myself for being so confidential and felt that I was quite the patron of my two respectful entertainers.

In Hollywood, moviemaking used to be about escaping reality to go to the movies.

I do not perceive even one other thing, O monks, that when undeveloped and uncultivated entails such great suffering as the mind. The mind when undeveloped and uncultivated entails great suffering.

Did you know that the Stegosaurus lived further away from the Tyrannosaurus Rex than we are from the Tyrannosaurus Rex in time?

Truth is so often disconcerting.

Hate always sells well, but for repeat trade and the long pull happiness is sounder merchandise.

Dr. Kissinger was a former child. Jerry Ford was a former child. Even F.D.R. was a former child. I retired from the movies in 1949, and I'm still a former child.