“Madam, I have been looking for a person who disliked gravy all my life; let us swear eternal friendship.”

“If I were to begin life again, I would devote it to music. It is the only cheap and unpunished rapture upon earth. ”

“The main question to a novel is -- did it amuse? were you surprised at dinner coming so soon? did you mistake eleven for ten? were you too late to dress? and did you sit up beyond the usual hour? I...”

“The fact is that in order to do anything in this world worth doing, we must not stand shivering on the bank thinking of the cold and the danger, but jump in and scramble through as well as we can.”

“No furniture is so charming as books.”

“I always fear that creation will expire before teatime.”

“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...”