"This is the law of the Yukon, and ever she makes it plain: "Send not your foolish and feeble; send me your strong and your sane -- Strong for the red rage of battle; sane for I harry them sore; Send me men girt for the combat, men who are grit to the core"

"The world is full of scribbling Nobodies who think they’re scribbling Somebodies."

"Wild and wide are my borders, stern as death is my sway; From my ruthless throne I have ruled alone for a million years and a day"

"By the time they reached the hall, they were not so much friends as fellow-conspirators, for Youth, when it is exiled into the kingdoms of the old, at once turns itself into the strongest of secret societies."

"Mrs Bevison-Burr, the commanding woman, came next. Her subject was Unbelief. She referred to Unbelief as if it were a very obnoxious person who was in the habit of insulting her every morning and evening. Mrs Bevison-Burr commanded them to do all manner of things to Unbelief."

"'Scotland! a queer country that, your honour!' 'So it is,' said I; 'a queerer country I never saw in all my life.' 'And a queer set of people, your honour,' 'So they are,' said I; 'a queerer set of people than the Scotch you would scarcely seen in a summer's day.'"

"I never saw such a place for merched anllad [wanton women] as Northampton."

"There's night and day, brother, both sweet things; sun, moon, and stars, brother, all sweet things; there's likewise a wind on the heath. Life is very sweet, brother; who would wish to die?"

"There's the wind on the heath, brother; if I could only feel that, I would gladly live for ever."

"I have always been a friend to hero-worship; it is the only rational one, and has always been in use amongst civilized people."

"Translation is at best an echo."

"He is not deserving of the name of Englishman who speaketh against ale, that is, good ale."

"There are no countries in the world less known by the British than these selfsame British Islands, or where more strange things are every day occurring."

"Smoking has a sedative effect upon the nerves, and enables a man to bear the sorrows of this life (of which every one has his share) not only decently, but dignifiedly."

"I often think I should like to have another rally—one more rally, and then—but there’s a time for all things—youth will be served, every dog has his day, and mine has been a fine one—let me be content."

"If you must commit suicide – and there is no knowing to what people may be brought – always contrive to do it as decorously as possible; the decencies, whether of life or of death, should never be lost sight of."

"He was as sentimental as Hitler about applause and crowds."

"The author of Amelia, the most singular genius which their island ever produced, whose works it has long been the fashion to abuse in public and to read in secret."

"Fear God, and take your own part."

"There is a peculiarity in the countenance, as everybody knows, which, though it cannot be described, is sure to betray the Englishman."

"Sherry...a silly, sickly compound, the use of which will transform a nation, however bold and warlike by nature, into a race of sketchers, scribblers, and punsters, in fact into what Englishmen are at the present day."

"Nothing but the infinite Pity is sufficient for the infinite pathos of human life."

"Although I was too young to understand the theory of universal (that's to say male) guilt, I was old enough to know which sex suffered migraine and which sex caused it."

"All those words of praise they use for novels – spare, economical. Why should I shell out £17 for economical?"

"All creeds and opinions are nothing but the mere result of chance and temperament."

"I'm a Jewish Jane Austen."

"The enthusiastic and pleasing illusions of youth."

"But here's something that puzzles me: is not victim-blaming counted among the worst of crimes wherever courses on faith and diversity, race and ethnicity, feminist philosophy and so on are taught. Or is victim-blaming an academic luxury not afforded to Jews? Israelis, do I mean? I understand the distinction. The separation between Israel and Jews is fundamental to anti-Zionist discourse. Anti-Semitic, I am assured repeatedly, is the last thing anti-Zionists are. But understand that the sight of Israelis who just happen to be Jews being manhandled into cars and driven away into captivity stirs memories of events that Jews hoped never to be caught up in again. One of the elderly Israeli hostages who just happens to be Jewish is a peacenik who lived in a kibbutz close to Gaza and ferried sick Gazans to hospitals in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. He thought they were his friends. The experience of friends turning on you the minute a |pogrom gets under way is also burned into the minds of Jews."

"In the matrimonial life of the Jewish male every day is Yom Kippur."

"In the highly improbable event of his being asked to nominate the one most un-Jewish thing he could think of, Sefton Goldberg would have been hard pressed to decide between Nature – that's to say birds, trees, flowers, and country walks – and football – that's to say beer, bikies, mud, and physical pain."

"Growing old's like being increasingly penalized for a crime you haven't committed."

"People think because a novel's invented, it isn't true. Exactly the reverse is the case. Because a novel's invented, it is true. Biography and memoirs can never be wholly true, since they can't include every conceivable circumstance of what happened. The novel can do that. The novelist himself lays it down. His decision is binding."

"Parents – especially step-parents – are sometimes a bit of a disappointment to their children. They don't fufill the promise of their early years."

"He fell in love with himself at first sight and it is a passion to which he has always remained faithful."

"Self-love seems so often unrequited."

"The whole idea of interviews is in itself absurd – one cannot answer deep questions about what one's life was like – one writes novels about it."

"[T]here is no greater sign of innate misery than a love of teasing."

"One thing that happens with gothic novels is the idea of the evil Other. That’s quite clear if you read Walpole or Radcliffe. It’s often an evil Italian or an evil Spaniard. Catholicism is mixed with that. It’s like these exotic evil Catholic people that are coming to pervert us."

"But hark! what shriek of death comes in the gale, And in the distant ray what glimmering sail Bends to the storm?—Now sinks the note of fear! Ah? wretched mariners!—no more shall day Unclose his cheering eye to light ye on your way!"

"After this, doors had to be opened with all the caution of a tax collector coping with a mysterious parcel that ticks."

"If there’s one lesson we’ve learned in the cosmos it’s that of never despising an alien culture. A species too big to learn soon goes small."

"We first dug out sixteen thousand fluent speakers of the several Sirian dialects. Eliminating the females and children brought the number down to nine thousand. Then, step by step, we cut out the elderly, the infirm, the weak, the untrustworthy, the temperamentally unsuitable. We weeded out those too short, too tall, too fat, too thin, too stupid, too rash, too cautious, and so forth. We weren't left with many among whom to seek for wasps."