“There was something alike terrifying and piteous in the spectacle of these frail old morsels of humanity consecrating their last flickering energies to the task of making each other wretched. Hatred seemed to be the one faculty which had survived in undiminished vigor where all else was dropping into ordered and symmetrical decay.”

“Do one thing for me, Sredni Vashtar.”

“It follows that they never understood Reginald, who came down late to breakfast, and nibbled toast, and said disrespectful things about the universe. The family ate porridge, and believed in everything, even the weather forecast.”

“Never be a pioneer. It's the early Christian that gets the fattest lion.”

“The cook was a good cook, as cooks go; and as cooks go, she went.”

“I think she might at least have waited till the funeral was over,' said Amanda in a scandalized voice.'It's her own funeral, you know,' said Sir Lulworth; 'it's a nice point in etiquette how far one ought to show respect to one's own mortal remains.' ("Laura")”

“He's simply got the instinct for being unhappy highly developed.”

“Oysters are more beautiful than any religion . . . there's nothing in Christianity or Buddhism that quite matches the sympathetic unselfishness of an oyster.”

“Sherard Blaw the dramatist who had discovered himself and who had given so unstintingly of his discovery to the world.”

“In baiting a mousetrap with cheese always leave room for the mouse.”

“A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanations.”