“I know I was writing stories when I was five. I don’t know what I did before that. Just loafed, I suppose.”

There is no surer foundation for a beautiful friendship than a mutual taste in literature.

"Nevertheless, it seemed to me that they, like you, lacked vision, This pig, you see, is a prize pig. Don't picture to yourself something with a kink in its tail sporting idly in the mud. Imagine, rather, a favourite daughter kidnapped from her ancestral home. This is heavy stuff, I assure you. Restore the animal in time for the Agricultural Show and you may ask of Lord Emsworth what you will, even unto half his kingdom."

"What do I want? I like that. That's good. Since you ask, Spode, I want to know what the devil you mean by keeping coming into my private apartment, taking up space which I require for other purposes and interrupting me when I am chatting with my personal friends. Really, one gets about as much privacy in this house as a strip-tease dancer. I assume that you have a room of your own. Get back to it, you fat slob, and stay there."

"No," said Lady Constance, after a moment's thought. "No, I shall not dismiss Beach. I take the view that he was led astray by Galahad. Galahad! I remember, when we were children," said Lady Constance wistfully, "seeing Galahad fall into that deep pond in the kitchen garden. And just as he was sinking for the last time, one of the gardeners came and pulled him out," she added, speaking with a sort of wild regret. It was plain that she was in agreement with the poet that of all sad words of tongue or pen the saddest are these: 'It might have been.' She paused for a moment, brooding on the folly of that chuckle-headed gardener.