I will not take up your time, dear boy, with telling you what is the matter with me. Life is brief, and you might pass away before I had finished. But I will tell you what is NOT the matter with me. I have not got housemaid’s knee. Why I have not got housemaid’s knee, I cannot tell you; but the fact remains that I have not got it. Everything else, however, I HAVE got.

Nothing is more beautiful than the love that has weathered the storms of life. The love of the young for the young, that is the beginning of life. But the love of the old for the old, that is the beginning of things longer.

Evil thought is a dangerous pet. It is safer to play with it from behind the iron bars of circumstance.

Angels may be very excellent sort of folk in their way, but we, poor mortals, in our present state, would probably find them precious slow company.

There is no fun in doing nothing when you have nothing to do. Wasting time is merely an occupation then, and a most exhausting one.

What readers ask nowadays in a book is that it should improve, instruct and elevate. This book wouldn't elevate a cow. I cannot conscientiously recommend it for any useful purposes whatever. All I can suggest is that when you get tired of reading "the best hundred books," you may take this for half an hour. It will be a change.

The shy man does have some slight revenge upon society for the torture it inflicts upon him.