“Readers, friends, if you turn these pagesPut your prejudice aside,For, really, there's nothing here that's outrageous,Nothing sick, or bad — or contagious.Not that I sit here glowing with prideFor my book: all you'll find is laughter:That's all the glory my heart is after,Seeing how sorrow eats you, defeats you.I'd rather write about laughing than crying,For laughter makes men human, and courageous.”

“Seeing how sorrow eats you, defeats you.I'd rather write about laughing than crying,For laughter makes men human, and courageous.”

“Do What Thou Wilt;because men that are free, well-born, well-bred, and conversant in honest companies, have naturally an instinct and spur that prompteth them unto virtuous actions, and withdraws them from vice, which is called honour. Those same men, when by base subjection and constraint they are brought under and kept down, turn aside from that noble disposition by which they formerly were inclined to virtue, to shake off and break that bond of servitude wherein they are so tyrannously enslaved; for it is agreeable with the nature of man to long after things forbidden and to desire what is denied us.”

“I have nothing, I owe a great deal, and the rest I leave to the poor.”

“..to laugh is proper to the man.”

“... I say and maintain, that of all torcheculs, arsewisps, bumfodders, tail-napkins, bunghole cleansers, and wipe-breeches, there is none in the world comparable to the neck of a goose ...”

“Gestures, in love, are incomparably more attractive, effective and valuable than words.”