Lewis Morris: "It is a conspiracy of silence against me - a conspiracy of silence! What should I do?" Oscar Wilde: "Join it

The post on her left was occupied by Mr. Erskine of Treadley, an old gentleman of considerable charm and culture, who had fallen, however, into bad habits of silence, having, as he explained once to Lady Agatha, said everything that he had to say before he was thirty.

There is no feeling more comforting and consoling than knowing you are right next to the one you love.

Ultimately the bond of all companionship, whether in marriage or in friendship, is conversation, and conversation must have a common basis, and between two people of widely different culture the only common basis possible is the lowest level.

You like every one; that is to say, you are indifferent to every one.

That is the worst of women. They always want one to be good. And if we are good, when they meet us, they don't love us at all. They like to find us quite irretrievably bad, and to leave us quite unattractively good.