Saki

A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation.

The cat of the slums and alleys, starved, outcast, harried, still keeps amid the prowlings of its adversity the bold, free, panther-tread with which it paced of yore the temple courts of Thebes, still displays the self-reliant watchfulness …

Confront a child, a puppy, and a kitten with a sudden danger; the child will turn instinctively for assistance, the puppy will grovel in abject submission to the impending visitation, the kitten will brace its tiny body for a frantic …

To be among people who are smothered in furs when one hasn't any oneself makes one want to break most of the Commandments.

The sacrifices of friendship were beautiful in her eyes as long as she was not asked to make them.

Cyprian was a boy who carried with him through early life the wondering look of a dreamer, the eyes of one who sees things that are not visible to ordinary mortals, and invests the commonplace things of this world with qualities …

Waldo is one of those people who would be enormously improved by death.

Sophie Chattel-Monkheim was a Socialist by conviction and a Chattel-Monkheim by marriage.

A beautifully constructed borsch, such as you are going to experience presently, ought not only to banish conversation but almost to annihilate thought.

Romance at short notice was her speciality.

I came here to get freedom from the inane interruptions of the mentally deficient, but it seems I asked too much of fate.

His socks compelled one's attention without losing one's respect.

Mrs. Troyle paused again, with the self-applauding air of one who has detected an asp lurking in an apple-charlotte.

Whenever a massacre of Armenians is reported from Asia Minor, every one assumes that it has been carried out "under orders" from somewhere or another; no one seems to think that there are people who might like to kill their neighbours now …

By insisting on having your bottle pointing to the north when the cork is being drawn, and calling the waiter Max, you may induce an impression on your guests which hours of laboured boasting might be powerless to achieve. For this …

I love Americans, but not when they try to talk French. What a blessing it is that they never try to talk English.

Sredni Vashtar went forth, His thoughts were red thoughts and his teeth were white. His enemies called for peace, but he brought them death. Sredni Vashtar the Beautiful.

The people of Crete unfortunately make more history than they can consume locally.

Eleanor hated boys, and she would have liked to have whipped this one long and often. It was perhaps the yearning of a woman who had no children of her own.

You evidently feel that brevity is the soul of widowhood.

All decent people live beyond their incomes nowadays, and those who aren't respectable live beyond other people's. A few gifted individuals manage to do both.

You needn't tell me that a man who doesn't love oysters and asparagus and good wines has got a soul, or a stomach either. He's simply got the instinct for being unhappy highly developed.

Poverty keeps together more homes than it breaks up.

But, good gracious, you've got to educate him first. You can't expect a boy to be vicious till he's been to a good school.