Ronald Firbank

"There was a pause – just long enough for an angel to pass, flying slowly."

"The world is so disgracefully managed, one hardly knows to whom to complain."

"I suppose when there's no more room for another crow's-foot, one attains a sort of peace?"

"Princess: I am always disappointed with mountains. There are no mountains in the world as high as I could wish. Adrian: No? Princess: They irritate me invariably. I should like to shake Switzerland."

"Oh! help me, heaven," she prayed, "to be decorative and to do right!"

"I remember the average curate at home as something between a eunuch and a snigger."

"On we read, confusing the characters with the incidents and neglecting the outcome, but tickled by the images and the turns of the talk. It is frivolous stuff, and how rare, how precious is frivolity! How few writers can prostitute all their powers!"

"He had something of the air, if one can imagine such a combination, of a witty and decadent Red Indian."

"It is the peculiar temper of Firbank's humour which divides him from the nineties. His raw material, allowing for the inevitable changes of fashion, is almost identical with Oscar Wilde's – the lives of rich, slightly decadent people seen against a background of traditional culture, grand opera, the picture galleries and the Court; but Wilde's was at heart radically sentimental. His wit is ornamental; Firbank's is structural. Wilde is rococo; Firbank is baroque."