Saki

To die before being painted by Sargent is to go to Heaven prematurely.

I am not collecting copies of the cheaper editions of Omar Khayyám. I gave the last four that I received to the lift-boy, and I like to think of him reading them, with FitzGerald's notes, to his aged mother. Lift-boys always have aged …

It is an admitted fact that the ordinary tomtit of commerce has a sounder aesthetic taste than the average female relative in the country.

I found everyone talking nervously and feverishly of the weather and the war in South Africa, except Reginald, who was reclining in a comfortable chair with the dreamy, far-away look that a volcano might wear just after it had desolated …

Reginald in his wildest lapses into veracity never admits to being more than twenty-two.

Put that bloody cigarette out!

I'm living so far beyond my income that we may almost be said to be living apart.

We all know that Prime Ministers are wedded to the truth, but like other married couples they sometimes live apart.