“What is more cheerful, now, in the fall of the year, than an open-wood-fire? Do you hear those little chirps and twitters coming out of that piece of apple-wood? Those are the ghosts of the robins ...”

“What is lovely never dies, but passes into other loveliness, Star-dust, or sea-foam, flower or winged air.”

“Imagine all human beings swept off the face of the earth, excepting one man. Imagine this man in some vast city, New York or London. Imagine him on the third or fourth day of his solitude sitting i...”

“Famous old houses seem to have an intuitive perception of the value of corner lots. If it is a possible thing, they always set themselves down on the most desirable spots.”

“To keep the heart unwrinkled, to be hopeful, kindly, cheerful, reverent - that is to triumph over old age.”

“When Washington visited Portsmouth in 1789, he was not much impressed by the architecture of the little town that had stood by him so stoutly in the struggle for independence.”

“Tenacity bores failure.”

“Social media: a fine tool for radicalised idiots to find each other, a promised land for the pub bores and Champ Man anoraks of the nation.”

“He is an old bore even the grave yawns for him.”

“Our labour preserves us from three great evils -- weariness, vice, and want.”

“Doing nothing is the hardest torture that a person can put himself through. For he is always brought face to face with his own self, which demands that he gives account for the sun which he useless...”

“We just philosophize, complain of boredom, or drink vodka. It's so clear, you see, that if we're to begin living in the present, we must first of all redeem our past and then be done with it foreve...”