We balance probabilities and choose the most likely. It is the scientific use of the imagination.

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.

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

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

Sometimes, if you stand on the bottom rail of a bridge and lean over to watch the river slipping slowly away beneath you, you will suddenly know everything there is to be known.

Comedy is a necessity to get through life with the fewest scars. Humor is the best antidote to help relieve all struggles.

Leave the hush to those who love like apes because together, you and I make vulgar sounds like a fervent sojourn in paradise.

When a father, absent during the day, returns home at six, his children receive only his temperament, not his teaching.

I don't like to go to conventions, and I don't like to relate to people on a level of hero worship, because there's no real communication going on there.

My voice is for hire. My endorsement is not for hire. I will do a voice-over, but I cannot endorse without making a different kind of commitment. My politics are very personal and subjective.

It is a fundamental rule of human life, that if the approach is good, the response is good.

I'm so boy-crazy. It's like I don't even know what's wrong with me. I love boys.

You never know what life is like, until you have lived it.