To my daughter Leonora without whose never failing sympathy and encouragement this book would have been completed in half the time.

• Boyhood, like measles, is one of those complaints which a man should catch young and have done with, for when it comes in middle life it is apt to be serious.
• It is a good rule in life never to apologize. The right sort of people do not want apologies, and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them.
• If not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled.
• The fascination of shooting as a sport depends almost wholly on whether you are at the right or wrong end of the gun.
• At the age of eleven or thereabouts women acquire a poise and an ability to handle difficult situations which a man, if he is lucky, manages to achieve somewhere in the later seventies.
• To my daughter Leonora without whose never failing sympathy and encouragement this book would have been completed in half the time.
• Has anybody ever seen a drama critic in the daytime? Of course not. They come out after dark, up to no good.