Jerome K. Jerome Quotes

I often arrive at quite sensible ideas and judgements, on the spur of the moment. It is when I stop to think that I become foolish.

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

It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do.

I saw a great Newfoundland dog the other day sitting in front of a mirror at the entrance to a shop in Regent's Circus, and examining himself with an amount of smug satisfaction that I have never seen equaled elsewhere outside a vestry meeting.

He is very imprudent, a dog; he never makes it his business to inquire whether you are in the right or the wrong, never asks whether you are rich or poor, silly or wise, sinner or saint. You are his pal. That is enough for him.

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

The shy man does have some slight revenge upon society for the torture it inflicts upon him. He is able, to a certain extent, to communicate his misery. He frightens other people as much as they frighten him. He acts like a damper upon the whole room, and the most jovial spirits become, in his presence, depressed and nervous.

I don't understand German myself. I learned it at school, but forgot every word of it two years after I had left, and have felt much better ever since.

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.

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.

Seek out some retired and old-world spot, far from the madding crowd, and dream away a sunny week among its drowsy lanes - some half-forgotten nook, hidden away by the fairies, out of reach of the noisy world - some quaint-perched eyrie on the cliffs of Time, from whence the surging waves of the nineteenth century would sound far-off and faint.

I also think pronunciation of a foreign tongue could be better taught than by demanding from the pupil those internal acrobatic feats that are generally impossible and always useless. This is the sort of instruction one receives : “Press your tonsils against the underside of your larynx. Then with the convex part of the septum curved upwards so as almost — but not quite — to touch the uvula, try with the tip of your tongue to reach your thyroid. Take a deep breath, and compress your glottis. Now without opening your lips say "Garoo".' And when you have done it they are not satisfied.

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.

Swearing relieves the feelings - that is what swearing does. I explained this to my aunt on one occasion, but it didn't answer with her. She said I had no business to have such feelings.

It is easy enough to say that poverty is no crime. No; if it were men wouldn't be ashamed of it. It is a blunder, though, and is punished as such. A poor man is despised the whole world over.

Better to work and fail than to sleep one's life away.

But who wants to be foretold the weather? It is bad enough when it comes, without our having the misery of knowing about it beforehand.

There may be a better land where bicycle saddles are made of rainbow, stuffed with cloud; in this world the simplest thing is to get used to something hard.

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