“It is a great thing to start life with a small number of really good books which are your very own.”

I cannot agree with those who rank modesty among the virtues.

The grand thing is to be able to reason backwards.

I get in the dumps at times, and don’t open my mouth for days on end. You must not think I am sulky when I do that. Just let me alone, and I’ll soon be right.

It is, I admit, mere imagination; but how often is imagination the mother of truth?

We balance probabilities and choose the most likely. It is the scientific use of the imagination.

There are no fools so troublesome as those who have some wit.

There’s a light in a woman’s eyes that speaks louder than words.

Of all ghosts the ghosts of our old loves are the worst.

When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

I wanted to end the world, but I’ll settle for ending yours.

It’s every man’s business to see justice done.

It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.

I never can resist a touch of the dramatic.

I am a brain, The rest of me is a mere appendix.

We would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere common places of existence.

A man should keep his little brain attic stocked with all the furniture that he is likely to use, and the rest he can put away in the lumber room of his library, where he can get it if he wants it.

So please, oh please, we beg, we pray, go throw your TV set away, and in its place you can install, a lovely bookshelf on the wall.

Reading is the creative center of a writer’s life.

Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.

It is with books as with men: a very small number play a great part.

You can write about anything for children as long as you’ve got humour.

Boys think girls are like books, If the cover doesn’t catch their eye they won’t bother to read what’s inside.

If you don’t like to read, you haven’t found the right book.

It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.