“He does love prophesying a misfortune, does the average British ghost. Send him out to prognosticate trouble to somebody, and he is happy. Let him force his way into a peaceful home, and turn the whole house upside down by foretelling a funeral, or predicting a bankruptcy, or hinting at a coming disgrace, or some other terrible disaster, about which nobody in their senses would want to know sooner than they could possible help, and the prior knowledge of which can serve no useful purpose whatsoever, and he feels that he is combining duty with pleasure. He would never forgive himself if anybody in his family had a trouble and he had not been there for a couple of months beforehand, doing silly tricks on the lawn or balancing himself on somebody's bedrail.("Introduction" to TOLD AFTER SUPPER)”

“He does love prophesying a misfortune, does the average British ghost. Send him out to prognosticate trouble to somebody, and he is happy. Let him force his way into a peaceful home, and turn the whole house upside down by foretelling a funeral, or predicting a bankruptcy, or hinting at a coming disgrace, or some other terrible disaster, about which nobody in their senses would want to know sooner than they could possible help, and the prior knowledge of which can serve no useful purpose whatsoever, and he feels that he is combining duty with pleasure. He would never forgive himself if anybody in his family had a trouble and he had not been there for a couple of months beforehand, doing silly tricks on the lawn or balancing himself on somebody's bedrail.("Introduction" to TOLD AFTER SUPPER)”

“I can see the humorous side of things and enjoy the fun when it comes; but look where I will, there seems to me always more sadness than joy in life.”

“What I am looking for is a blessing not in disguise.”

“It is in our faults and failings, not in our virtues, that we touch each other, and find sympathy. It is in our follies that we are one.”

“We drink one another's health and spoil our own.”

“Love is like the measles we all have to go through it. ”

“I like work it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours. I love to keep it by me: the idea of getting rid of it nearly breaks my heart.”

“It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do.”

“It is easy enough to say that poverty is no crime. No if it were men wouldn't be ashamed of it. It's a blunder though and is punished as such.”

“Idleness like kisses to be sweet must be stolen.”

“It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do.”