Life is really like a ship–the interior of a ship, that is. It has watertight compartments. You emerge from one, seal and bolt the doors, and find yourself in another. My life from the day we left Southampton to the day we returned to England was one such compartment. Ever since that I have felt the same about travel. You step from one life into another. You are yourself, but a different self. The new self is untrammelled by all the hundreds of spiders’ webs and filaments.
That is the word of reality – need.
I mean, what can you say about how you write books? What I mean is, first you’ve got to think of something, and when you’ve thought of it you’ve got to force yourself to sit down and write it. That’s all. It would have taken me just three minutes to explain that, and then the Talk would have been ended and everyone would have been very fed up. I can’t imagine why everybody is always so keen for authors to talk about writing. I should have thought it was an author’s business to write, not talk.
I’ve often noticed that when coincidences start happening they go on happening in the most extraordinary way. I dare say it’s some natural law that we haven’t found out.
I neither see nor comprehend. You make all these confounded mysteries, and it’s useless asking you to explain. You always like keeping something up your sleeve to the last minute.
Ah, but people don’t run true to form in love affairs.
It is romantic, you know, the transatlantic telephone. To speak so easily to someone nearly halfway across the globe. The telegraphed photograph – that, too, is romantic. Science is the greatest romance there is.
For, once there’s a death, one doesn’t like to think there’s been harsh words spoken and no chance of taking them back.
Oh, fancy! All these. I really have forgotten a lot of these. Oh, here’s The Amulet and here’s The Psamayad. Here’s The New Treasure Seekers. Oh, I love all those. No, don’t put them in shelves yet, Albert. I think I’ll have to read them first.
Do you like sitting here looking out to the sea?” – Vera E. Claythorne.
No one human being knows the full truth about another human being. Not even one’s nearest and dearest.
It was not unknown in the present age for children to commit crimes, quite young children. Children of seven, of nine and so on, and it was often difficult to know how to dispose of these natural, it seemed, young criminals who came before the juvenile courts. Excuses had to be brought for them. Broken homes. Negligent and unsuitable parents. But the people who spoke the most vehemently for them, the people who sought to bring forth every excuse for them, were usually the type of Rowena Drake.
But man was a ridiculous animal anyway...
Is there a common denominator? I wonder. You know, if there is, I should be inclined to say it is vanity.
Elephants are quite enough.
He’s very nice,” said Mrs. Clayton, “but not quite quite, you know. Hasn’t got any idea of culture.” Richard found his room exceedingly comfortable, and his appreciation of Mrs. Clayton as a hostess rose still higher.
What a newspaper prints is news – but not always truth!
Because of his face.” “His face? But – ” “Yes, I know what you’re going to say. It’s a sinister face. That’s just it. No man with a face like that could be really sinister. It must be a colossal joke on the part of Nature.
A dog is a great promoter of friendly intercourse.
Yes, yes, I know. Life is like a train, Mademoiselle. It goes on. And it is a good thing that that is so.” “Why?” “Because the train gets to its journey’s end at last, and there is a proverb about that in your language, Mademoiselle.” “ ‘Journeys end in lovers meeting.’ ” Lenox laughed. “That is not going to be true for me.” “Yes – yes, it is true. You are young, younger than you yourself know. Trust the train, Mademoiselle, for it is le bon Dieu who drives it.