“Z is for Zillah who drank too much gin.”

“A is for Amy who fell down the stairs.B is for Basil assaulted by bears.C is for Clara who wasted away.D is for Desmond thrown out of a sleigh.E is for Ernest who choked on a peach. F is for Fanny sucked dry by a leech.G is for George smothered under a rug.H is for Hector done in by a thug.I is for Ida who drowned in a lake.J is for James who took lye by mistake.K is for Kate who was struck with an axe.L is for Leo who choked on some tacks.M is for Maud who was swept out to sea.N is for Neville who died of ennui.O is for Olive run through with an awl.P is for Prue trampled flat in a brawl.Q is for Quentin who sank on a mire.R is for Rhoda consumed by a fire.S is for Susan who perished of fits.T is for Titus who flew into bits.U is for Una who slipped down a drain.V is for Victor squashed under a train.W is for Winnie embedded in ice.X is for Xerxes devoured by mice.Y is for Yorick whose head was bashed in.Z is for Zillah who drank too much gin.”

“We did I think talk about your feeling of it's fun to be square, and while I'll go along with the Borges-like ramifications, I don't think I was the one who thought it up. In the past my justification for my self-conscious oddness of appearance (by now I figure this is the way I look, and it would not only be more self-conscious but also uncomfortable to change) was that people would think their impression of oddity came simply from the way I looked, and eventually become (hopefully) pleasantly surprised that I was not nearly as much of a nut as I looked, and was really quite ordinary, which is also true I think. It seemed preferable to people thinking 'Well, he looked perfectly ordinary and then it became apparent there was something wrong with his head...' Of course now practically everybody to my middle aged way of thinking looks too peculiar for words, and only very infrequently attractive at the same time.”

“where was I? in remarking that me is the envelopes and not nearly so much so, the often foolish letters inside.”

“Mr Earbrass escaped from Messrs Scuffle and Dustcough, who were most anxious to go into all the ramifications of a scheme for having his novels translated into Urdu, and went to call on a distant cousin.”

“I am a person before I am anything else. I never say I am a writer. I never say I am an artist...I am a person who does those things.”

“To take my work seriously would be the height of folly.”