“Ariadne made an impression on you, and that's great. But life is not literature. Sooner or later, the spell wears off, the romantic feelings disappear, and you're left watching somebody's body disi...”

“The importance of humor is primarily to puncture fixed ideasto make us step back and realize that our situation, whatever it may be, is, in the grand scheme of things, always contingent and arbitra...”

“Theres no escaping it, hed been fond of telling us when he was well, the way you look defines who you are. You might argue for your soul, or your heart, but everyone else in the world will judge yo...”

“The stories we read in books, what's presented to us as being interesting - they have very little to do with real life as it's lived today. I'm not talking about straight-up escapism, your vampires...”

“None of it made any difference. The hollow feeling refused to go away. The next days were very hard. I found myself in the grip of a crippling ennui. I was back at square one, but I couldnt bring m...”

“I saw myself as reviving a certain mode of life, a mode that had been almost lost: the contemplative life of the country gentleman, in harmony with his status and history. In Renaissance times they...”

“A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.”

“I've always said that idleness dulls the spirit. We have to keep the brain busy, or at least the hands if we don't have a brain.”

“If your workplace was somehow transplanted into the jungle and everyone was forced to survive at a very primitive level, it's safe to say that eventually your boss would rape you.”

“Why is it a man can never seem to buckle down and train himself to indolence and stupidity when he can see what sanctuary they offer from toil and pain?”

“We often miss opportunity because it's dressed in overalls and looks like work”

“Sloth makes all things difficult, but industry all easy; and he that riseth late must trot all day, and shall scarce overtake his business at night; while laziness travels so slowly, that poverty s...”

“My get-up-and-go often leaves without me.”