There is no more thrilling sensation I know of than sailing. It comes as near to flying as man has got to yet - except in dreams.

It is a most extraordinary thing, but I never read a patent medicine advertisement without being impelled to the conclusion that I am suffering from the particular disease therein dealt with in its most virulent form.

I like cats.... When I meet a cat, I say, "Poor Pussy!" and stoop down and tickle the side of its head; and the cat sticks up its tail in a rigid, cast-iron manner, arches its back, and wipes its nose up against my trousers; and all is gentleness and peace.

What readers ask nowadays in a book is that it should improve, instruct, and elevate. This book wouldn't elevate a cow.

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 like work; it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.