Gentlemen can now only behave as such, or be tolerated as such, in circumstances that are manifestly contrived or unreal.

I wanted to look at the upper-middle-class scene since the war, and in particular my generation's part in it. We had spent our early years as privileged members of a privileged class. How were we faring in the Age of the Common Man? How ought we to be faring?

I loved the Army as an institution and loathed every single thing it required me to do.

Art for art's sake, money for God's sake.

Scholarship was one thing, drudgery another. I very soon concluded that nothing would induce me to read, let alone make notes on, hundreds and hundreds of very, very, very boring books.

Whereas the gentleman always seeks to deserve his position, the aristocrat, disdainful and insouciant, is quite happy just to exploit it.

Right ho, I'll marry you. That'll keep your family happy. But I won't live with you - ever.

I've always written for a small audience consisting of people like myself who are well-educated, worldly, skeptical and snobbish (meaning that they rank good taste over bad). And who believe that nothing and nobody is special.

How can I go on with this? Please God, let me win a football pool.