“I attended a symposium, an event named after a fifth century (B.C.) Athenian drinking party in which nonnerds talked about love; alas, there was no drinking, and mercifully, nobody talked about love.”

“Another savage trait of our time is the disposition to talk about material substances instead of about ideas. The old civilisation talked about the sin of gluttony or excess. We talk about the Problem of Drink--as if drink could be a problem. When people have come to call the problem of human intemperance the Problem of Drink, and to talk about curing it by attacking the drink traffic, they have reached quite a dim stage of barbarism. The thing is an inverted form of fetish worship; it is no sillier to say that a bottle is a god than to say that a bottle is a devil. The people who talk about the curse of drink will probably progress down that dark hill. In a little while we shall have them calling the practice of wife-beating the Problem of Pokers; the habit of housebreaking will be called the Problem of the Skeleton-Key Trade; and for all I know they may try to prevent forgery by shutting up all the stationers' shops by Act of Parliament.”

“There’s always something to talk about, even if you talk about how there is nothing to talk about. Of course, I’m talking about love.”

“I like the idea of a Vibrator Ceremony. After we’re done burying them, we could make canapés and drink champagne. It’s a lot more fun to talk about that than hunting down humans.”

“Talking to the British about sex is like talking to Americans about reading. Nobody does it so why talk about it?”

“When a man who is drinking neat gin starts talking about his mother he is past all argument.”