History repeats itself. Historians repeat each other.Collection: History
Biography, like big game hunting, is one of the recognized forms of sport, and it is as unfair as only sport can be.
Biography is a very definite region bounded on the north by history, on the south by fiction, on the east by obituary, and on the west by tedium.
The work of Henry James has always seemed divisible by a simple dynastic arrangement into three reigns: James I, James II, and the Old Pretender.
The Crimean War is one of the bad jokes of history.Collection: War
The preface is the most important part of a book. Even reviewers read a preface.Collection: Book
The Lord Chief Justice of England recently said that the greater part of his judicial time was spent investigating collisions between propelled vehicles, each on its own side of the road, each sounding its horn and each stationary.Collection: Punishment
The detective story is the normal recreation of noble minds.Collection: Mind
I had always imagined that Cliché was a suburb of Paris, until I discovered it to be a street in Oxford.Collection: Oxford
The work of Henry James has always seemed divisible by a simple dynastic arrangement into three reigns: James I, James II, and the Old PretenderCollection: Simple