Saki (1870 – 1916)
Pen name of British author Hector Hugh Munro, whose witty and sometimes macabre stories satirised Edwardian society and culture.
Reginald closed his eyes with the elaborate weariness of one who has rather nice eyelashes and thinks it useless to conceal the fact.
His socks compelled one's attention without losing one's respect.
And they tried to rag me in the smoking room about not being able to hit a bird at five yards, a sort of bovine ragging that suggested cows buzzing round a gadfly and thinking they were teasing it. So I got up the next morning at early dawn – I know it was dawn, because there were lark-noises in the sky, and the grass looked as if it had been left out all night.
The people of Crete unfortunately make more history than they can consume locally.
You can't expect the fatted calf to share the enthusiasm of the angels over the prodigal's return.
Sredni Vashtar went forth,
His thoughts were red thoughts and his teeth were white.
His enemies called for peace, but he brought them death.
Sredni Vashtar the Beautiful.
A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation.
"Which reminds me of the man I read of in some sacred book who was given a choice of what he most desired. And because he didn't ask for titles and honours and dignities, but only for immense wealth, these other things came to him also."
"I am sure you didn't read about him in any sacred book."
"Yes; I fancy you will find him in Debrett."
I might have been a goldfish in a glass bowl for all the privacy I got.
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.
By insisting on having your bottle pointing to the north when the cork is being drawn, and calling the waiter Max, you may induce an impression on your guests which hours of laboured boasting might be powerless to achieve. For this purpose, however, the guests must be chosen as carefully as the wine.
I came here to get freedom from the inane interruptions of the mentally deficient, but it seems I asked too much of fate.
I love Americans, but not when they try to talk French. What a blessing it is that they never try to talk English.
The death of John Pennington had left his widow in circumstances which were more straitened than ever, and the Park had receded even from her notepaper, where it had long been retained as a courtesy title on the principle that addresses are given to us to conceal our whereabouts.
I am not collecting copies of the cheaper editions of Omar Khayyám. I gave the last four that I received to the lift-boy, and I like to think of him reading them, with FitzGerald's notes, to his aged mother. Lift-boys always have aged mothers; shows such nice feeling on their part, I think.
Mrs. Troyle paused again, with the self-applauding air of one who has detected an asp lurking in an apple-charlotte.
The Western custom of one wife and hardly any mistress.
I always say beauty is only sin deep.
You evidently feel that brevity is the soul of widowhood.