They Return at Evening

'Racing,' he was wont to declare, 'consists of mugs, bloody mugs, crooks, bloody crooks, and 'orses.'

It was a sort of joke amongst authors in America to say, 'Now Barrabas was a publisher'. 'Well,' thought Mr Cheltenham, 'if that were so, every scribe in the Province should have come to howl for his release.'

The only supernatural personage for whom I have any respect is the Devil, for I believe he looks after his own, which is more than can be said for any of the more reputable deities.

To middle-aged bachelors with large Tudor houses, dwarfed social senses, and a great appreciation of personal comfort, to perhaps a little bit selfish gentry of this sort, their butlers are, next to themselves, the most important people in the world.

Fooling about with a car is for most people merely a substitute for thought.

A vice is known by the company it collects. There must be something to be said for opium. It makes glad the heart of Chinks, it induced 'The Ancient Mariner', and made De Quincey immortal. Booze has many excellent songs, Boris Goudonov, and missed partridges to its credit. Even murder can point to detective stories - the favourite literature of our Great Ones, and the support of hangmen's families. But gambling has nothing to justify its existence.