“I can do a book in three months if I spend all day, seven days a week at it and, in fact, I work better that way.”

Most men are reasonably useful in a crisis. The difficulty lies in convincing them that the situation has reached a critical point

The approval of a cat cannot but flatter the recipient.

I disapprove of matrimony as a matter of principle…. Why should any independent, intelligent female choose to subject herself to the whims and tyrannies of a husband? I assure you, I have yet to meet a man as sensible as myself! (Amelia Peabody)

there is nothing like a garden to rest the soul.

It was hate at first sight, clean, pure and strong as grain alcohol.

To argue without knowledge is like trying to weave without thread.

Noble causes have a deplorable effect on the morals of the persons who espouse them.

I have learned that particularly clever ideas do not always stand up under close scrutiny.

stereotypes are awfully misleading. There are typical librarians, but not all librarians are typical.

Sekhmet crawled onto Ramses’s lap and began to purr. ‘The creature oozes like a furry slug,’ said Ramses, eyeing it without favor.

Children, I feel, are as much entitled to privacy as human beings.

Humor is an excellent method of keeping a tight rein on unproductive displays of emotion.

The trouble with unknown enemies is that they are so difficult to identify.

The way to get on with a cat is to treat it as an equal – or even better, as the superior it knows itself to be.

I do hope you have some money. I’m getting tired of hitting people.

Emerson,’ I said, choosing my words with care, ‘it is a sheer drop from the cleft down to the base of the cliff. If you are bent on breaking your arm or your leg or your neck or all three, find a place closer to home so we won’t have to carry you such a distance.

It’s true Fang and I fight, but we’ve never gone to bed mad. Of course, one year we were up for three months.

I asked the waiter, ‘Is this milk fresh?’ He said, ‘Lady, three hours ago it was grass.’

Armaments, universal debt and planned obsolescence – those are the three pillars of Western prosperity.

The body of the Earth, large, sluggish and inapt for motion, is not to be disturbed by movement (especially three movements), any more than the Aetherial Lights [stars] are to be shifted.

It is quite clear to me that the Tory Party will get rid of Mrs Thatcher in about 3 years time.

She loved three things – a joke, a glass of wine, and a handsome man.

I serve dinner in three phases: serve the food, clear the table, bury the dead.

In a world where women work three times as hard for half as much, our achievement has been denigrated, both marriage and divorce have turned against us, our motherhood has been used as an obstacle to our success, our passion as a trap.