Charles Lamb

Clap an extinguisher upon your irony if you are unhappily blessed with a vein of it.

Anything awful makes me laugh. I misbehaved once at a funeral.

For thy sake, tobacco, I would do anything but die.

We gain nothing by being with such as ourselves. We encourage one another in mediocrity. I am always longing to be with men more excellent than myself.

The red-letter days, now become, to all intents and purposes, dead-letter days.

She unbent her mind afterwards - over a book.

I'd like to grow very old as slowly as possible.

To be sick is to enjoy monarchical prerogatives.

What is reading, but silent conversation.

I have had playmates, I have had companions; In my days of childhood, in my joyful school days - All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

A pun is not bound by the laws which limit nicer wit. It is a pistol let off at the ear; not a feather to tickle the intellect.

Man is a gaming animal. He must always be trying to get the better in something or other.

The most common error made in matters of appearance is the belief that one should disdain the superficial and let the true beauty of one's soul shine through. If there are places on your body where this is a possibility, you are not attractive - you are leaking.

Riches are chiefly good because they give us time.

Newspapers always excite curiosity. No one ever puts one down without the feeling of disappointment.

Boys are capital fellows in their own way, among their mates; but they are unwholesome companions for grown people.

Some people have a knack of putting upon you gifts of no real value, to engage you to substantial gratitude. We thank them for nothing.

We grow gray in our spirit long before we grow gray in our hair.

I could never hate anyone I knew.

Shakespeare is one of the last books one should like to give up, perhaps the one just before the Dying Service in a large Prayer book.