“It grieved him plaguily, he said, to see the nuptial couch defrauded of its dearest pledges: and to reflect upon so many agreeable females with rich jointures, a prey for the vilest bonzes, who hide their flambeau under a bushel in an uncongenial cloister or lose their womanly bloom in the embraces of some unaccountable muskin when they might multiply the inlets of happiness, sacrificing the inestimable jewel of their sex when a hundred pretty fellows were at hand to caress, this, he assured them, made his heart weep.”

“Father Brown got to his feet, putting his hands behind him. 'Odd, isn't it,' he said, 'that a thief and a vagabond should repent, when so many who are rich and secure remain hard and frivolous, and without fruit for God or man?”

“I believe, whoever sees the Grail will find it agreeable. It charms all those of this land, they find it pleasant and agreeable; those who are able to remain with it and can bear its presence, when they see it they feel delight, they are as happy as a fish when a man holds it in his hand, and it can escape from his hand and return to swimming unconfined in the water.”

“There were many things a man might think he should be told when a woman agreed to marry him. She had choose not to mention several of them”

“When I asked him how this cramping might affect his sword arm, he assured me it was only the narrow grip of the writing instruments that troubled him. “If we fought with pens,” he said, “I would be forced to fall upon mine.”

“It is natural for our unamiable sex to dislike the creatures, for you ladies lavish so many caresses upon them.”