Dec 25, 1908 - Dec 21, 1999
was an English writer and raconteur.
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I don't hold with abroad and think that foreigners speak English when our backs are turned
The law is simply expediency wearing a long white dress.
The very purpose of existence is to reconcile the glowing opinion we hold of ourselves with the appalling things that other people think about us.
Euphemisms are not, as many young people think, useless verbiage for that which can and should be said bluntly; they are like secret agents on a delicate mission, they must airily pass by a stinking mess with barely so much as a nod of the head
Euphemisms are unpleasant truths wearing diplomatic cologne.
You should treat all disasters as if they were trivialities but never treat a triviality as if it were a disaster
Men get laid, but women get screwed.
It's no good running a pig farm badly for 30 years while saying, 'Really, I was meant to be a ballet dancer.' By then, pigs will be your style.
If at first you don't succeed, failure may be your style.
I simply haven't the nerve to imagine a being, a force, a cause which keeps the planets revolving in their orbits and then suddenly stops in order to give me a bicycle with three speeds.
For an introvert his environment is himself and can never be subject to startling or unforeseen change.
There are three reasons for becoming a writer: the first is that you need the money; the second that you have something to say that you think the world should know; the third is that you can't think what to do with the long winter evenings.
Health consists of having the same diseases as one's neighbors.
You fall out of your mother's womb, you crawl across open country under fire, and drop into your grave.
When I told the people of Northern Ireland that I was an atheist, a woman in the audience stood up and said, 'Yes, but is it the God of the Catholics or the God of the Protestants in whom you don't believe?
The British do not expect happiness. I had the impression, all the time that I lived there, that they do not want to be happy; they want to be right.
It is explained that all relationships require a little give and take. This is untrue. Any partnership demands that we give and give and give and at the last, as we flop into our graves exhausted, we are told that we didn't give enough.
When I told the people of Northern Ireland that I was an atheist, a woman in the audience stood up and said, \'Yes, but is it the God the Catholics or the God of the Protestants in whom you don't believe?\'
If you describe things as better than they are, you are considered to be a romantic; if you describe things as worse than they are, you will be called a realist; and if you describe things exactly as they are, you will be thought of as a satirist.
The young always have the same problem -- how to rebel and conform at the same time. They have now solved this by defying their parents and copying one another.
An autobiography is an obituary in serial form with the last installment missing.
Life is a game in which the rules are constantly changing; nothing spoils a game more than those who take it seriously. Adultery? Phooey! You should never subjugate yourself to another nor seek the subjugation of someone else to yourself. If you follow that Crispian principle you will be able to say Phooey, too, instead of reaching for your gun when you fancy yourself betrayed.
Decency must be an even more exhausting state to maintain than its opposite. Those who succeed seem to need a stupefying amount of sleep.
Euphemisms are not, as many young people think, useless verbiage for that which can and should be said bluntly; they are like secret agents on a delicate mission, they must airily pass by a stinking mess with barely so much as a nod of the head, make their point of constructive criticism and continue on in calm forbearance. Euphemisms are unpleasant truths wearing diplomatic cologne.
Vice is its own reward. It is virtue which, if it is to be marketed with consumer appeal, must carry Green Shield stamps.
The formula for achieving a successful relationship is simple: you should treat all disasters as if they were trivialities but never treat a triviality as if it were a disaster.
The very purpose of existence is to reconcile the glowing opinion we have of ourselves with the appalling things that other people think about us.
My mother protected me from the world and my father threatened me with it.
It is not the simple statement of facts that ushers in freedom; it is the constant repetition of them that has this liberating effect. Tolerance is the result not of enlightenment, but of boredom.
