"If he were a man of strong mind, it only gave him fits; but a person of mere average intellect it usually sent mad."
"When Montmorency meets a cat, the whole street knows about it; and there is enough bad language wasted in ten seconds to last an ordinarily respectable man all his life, with care."
"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."
"I plodded conscientiously through the twenty-six letters, and the only malady I could conclude I had not got was housemaid's knee."
"George got out his banjo after supper, and wanted to play it, but Harris objected: he said he had got a headache, and did not feel strong enough to stand it. George thought the music might do him good - said music often soothed the nerves and took away a headache; and he twanged two or three notes, just to show Harris what it was like.Harris said he would rather have the headache."
"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 had walked into that reading-room a happy, healthy man. I crawled out a decrepit wreck."
"Harris said, however, that the river would suit him to a "T." I don't know what a "T" is (except a sixpenny one, which includes bread-and- butter and cake AD LIB., and is cheap at the price, if you haven't had any dinner). It seems to suit everybody, however, which is greatly to its credit."
"He told us that it had been a fine day to-day, and we told him that it had been a fine day yesterday, and then we all told each other that we thought it would be a fine day to-morrow; and George said the crops seemed to be coming up nicely."
"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."
"I looked at the piles of plates and cups, and kettles, and bottles and jars, and pies and stoves, and cakes, and tomatoes, &c., and felt that the thing would soon become exciting. It did. They started with breaking a cup. That was the first thing they did. They did that just to show you what they COULD do, and to get you interested."