“I have learned more from my mistakes than from my successes.”

“Oh, my friend, it's not what they take away from you that counts. It's what you do with what you have left.”

“I should never have switched from Scotch to Martinis.”

“Computers will have to learn that when I quote from some old author who spelled differently from the machine, the wishes of the long-dead author will have to be respected, and the machine will have to mind its manners”

“Elsie, who had a lot of energy and no shame...she seduced me. It was not a success, from Elsie's point of view, because the orgasm for women was just coming into general popularity then, and she didn't have one.”

“Or rather, it made him into two people. He was by nature a cheerful almost irrepressible person with a great zest for life. He loved good talk and physical activity. He had a deep sense of humour and a great capacity for making friends. But from now onwards there was to be a second side, more private but predominant in his diaries and letters. This side of him was capable of bouts of profound despair. More precisely, and more closely related to his mother's death, when he was in this mood he had a deep sense of impending loss. Nothing was safe. Nothing would last. No battle would be won for ever.”

“Soon he would see war. Jis romanticism and inexperience insulated him from the thought that he might feel it, too.”