Robertson Davies, The Rebel Angels

"Energy and curiousity are the lifeblood of universities; the desire to find out, to uncover, to dig deeper, to puzzle out obscurities, is the spirit of the university and it is a channelling of that unresting curiousity that holds mankind together." (86-7)

"God's a rum old joker, Clem, and we must never forget it." (101)

Words
Sorn (v)
Hypotyposis
Magus
Adiposity
Pneumatic
Hetaera
Craven
Salutary
Quoin
Warren
Threnody
Meccano
Luthier
Saturnine

Kingsley Amis, Lucky Jim

Dixon liked and revered him for his air of detesting everything that presented itself to his senses, and of not meaning to let this detestation become staled by custom. (34)

The one indispensible answer to an environment bristling with people and things one thought were bad was to go on finding out new ways in which one could think they were bad. (129)

Words
Fulsome
Florid
Temporize
Vole
Vertiginous
Objurgatory
Plangency
Invigilate

Fowler's Modern English Usage

From Ernest Gowers' Preface, about Fowler:

The most prominent element in Fowler's idiosyncracy was evidently what the Romans called aequanimitus. He knew what he wanted in life; what he wanted was within his reach; he took it and was content. (v-vi)

Also this:

...those who are over-fussy about the placing of the adverb only are the sort of friends from whom the English language may well pray to be saved. (vii)