I have done my fiddling so long under Vesuvius that I have almost forgotten to play, and can only wait for the eruption and think it long of coming. Literally no man has more wholly outlived life than I. And still it's good fun.

The world has no room for cowards. We must all be ready somehow to toil, to suffer, to die.

The most beautiful adventures are not those we go to seek.

The little rift between the sexes is astonishingly widened by simply teaching one set of catchwords to the girls and another to the boys.

I know what happiness is, for I have done good work.

He is not easy to describe. There is something wrong with his appearance; something displeasing, something downright detestable. I never saw a man I so disliked, and yet I scarce know why. He must be deformed somewhere; he gives a strong feeling of deformity, although I couldn’t specify the point. He’s an extraordinary-looking man, and yet I really can name nothing out of the way. No sir; I can make no hand of it; I can’t describe him. And it’s not want of memory; for I declare I can see him this moment.

You start a question, and it's like starting a stone. You sit quietly on the top of a hill; and away the stone goes, starting others.