All whispers and echoes from a past that is gone teem into the sleeper’s brain, and he is with them, and part of them.

It wouldn’t make for sanity would it, living with the devil.

We’re not meant for happiness, you and I.

I believe there is a theory that men and women emerge finer and stronger after suffering, and that to advance in this or any world we must endure ordeal by fire.

What about the hero of The House on the Strand? What did it mean when he dropped the telephone at the end of the book? I don’t really know, but I rather think he was going to be paralysed for life. Don’t you?

Watch that boy. He’s going to startle somebody someday.

And I don’t like books which are full of name dropping.

If you think I’m one of those people who try to be funny at breakfast you’re wrong. I’m invariably ill-tempered in the early morning.

Boredom is a pleasing antidote for fear.

Happiness happens when you fit with your life, when you fit so harmoniously that whatsoever you are doing is your joy. Happiness is not a possession to be prized, it is a quality of thought, a state of mind.