“Evil thought is a dangerous pet. It is safer to play with it from behind the iron bars of circumstance.”

“I never knew you played the banjo!" cried Harris and I, in one breath."Not exactly," replied George: "but it's very easy, they tell me; and I've got the instruction book!"From Three Men in a Boat”

“Let us play the game of life as sportsmen, pocketing our winnings with a smile, leaving our losings with a shrug.”

“I answered that I thought he would never smile again.”

“Eat good dinners and drink good wine; read good novels if you have the leisure and see good plays; fall in love, if there is no reason why you should not fall in love; but do not pore over influenza statistics.”

“Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need - a homely home and simple pleasures, one or two friends, worth the name, someone to love and someone to love you, a cat, a dog, and a pipe or two, enough to eat and enough to wear, and a little more than enough to drink; for thirst is a dangerous thing. ”

“That the boat did not upset I simply state as a fact. Why it did not upset I am unable to offer any reason. I have often thought about the matter since, but I have never succeeded in arriving at any satisfactory explanation of the phenomenon. Possibly the result may have been brought about by the natural obstinacy of all things in this world. The boat may possibly have come to the conclusion, judging from a cursory view of our behaviour, that we had come out for a morning's suicide, and had thereupon determined to disappoint us. That is the only suggestion I can offer.”