Quotes from Hector Hugh Munro

The man is a common murderer. A common murderer, possible, but a very uncommon cook.

He seems the incarnation of everything soft and silky and velvety, without a sharp edge in his composition, a dreamer whose philosophy is sleep and let sleep.

We all know that Prime Ministers are wedded to the truth, but like other wedded couples they sometimes live apart.

On horseback he seemed to require as many hands as a Hindu god, at least four for clutching the reins, and two more for patting the horse soothingly on the neck.

The cook was a good cook, as cooks go; and as cooks go, she went.

But, good gracious, you've got to educate him first. You can't expect a boy to be vicious till he's been to a good school.

The cat is domestic only as far as suits its own ends.

Children with Hyacinth's temperament don't know better as they grow older; they merely know more.

He spends his life explaining from his pulpit that the glory of Christianity consists in the fact that though it is not true it has been found necessary to invent it.

All decent people live beyond their incomes; those who aren't respectable live beyond other people's; a few gifted individuals manage to do both.

I believe I once considerably scandalized her by declaring that clear soup was a more important factor in life than a clear conscience.

Life is full of its disappointments, and I suppose the art of being happy is to disguise them as illusions.

Addresses are given to us to conceal our whereabouts.

Hors d'oeuvres have always a pathetic interest for me; they remind me of one's childhood that one goes through wondering what the next course is going to be like - and during the rest of the menu one wishes one had eaten more of the hors d'oeuvres.

A little inaccuracy sometimes saves a ton of explanation.

A relative of mine ... spends his time producing improved breeds of sheep and pigs and chickens. So patronising and irritating to teh Almighty, I should think.

The revenge of an elder sister may be long in coming, but, like a South-Eastern express, it arrives in its own good time.

Poverty keeps together more homes than it breaks up.

You needn't tell me that a man who doesn't love oysters and asparagus and good wines has got a soul, or a stomach either. He's simply got the instinct for being unhappy highly developed.

I love Americans, but not when they try to talk French. What a blessing it is that they never try to talk English.

I always say beauty is only sin deep.

To be among people who are smothered in furs when one hasn't any oneself makes one want to break most of the Commandments.

It's no use growing older if you only learn new ways of misbehaving yourself.

Why are women so fond of raking up the past? They're as bad as tailors, who invariably remember what you owe them for a suit long after you've ceased to wear it.