I had walked into that reading-room a happy, healthy man. I crawled out a decrepit wreck.

We like, we cherish, we are very, very fond of—but we never love again.

Fox-terriers are born with about four times as much original sin in them as other dogs.

It is a curious fact, but nobody ever is sea-sick - on land. At sea, you come across plenty of people very bad indeed, whole boat-loads of them; but I never met a man yet, on land, who had ever known at all what it was to be sea-sick. Where the thousands upon thousands of bad sailors that swarm in every ship hide themselves when they are on land is a mystery.

I want a house that has got over all its troubles; I don't want to spend the rest of my life bringing up a young and inexperienced house.

It is very strange, this domination of our intellect by our digestive organs. We cannot work, we cannot think, unless our stomach wills so. It dictates to us our emotions, our passions.

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