Jerome K Jerome

'The most virtuous thing in nature, according to this new theory, should be the oyster. He is always at home, and always sober. He is not noisy. He gives no trouble to the police. I cannot think of a single one of the Ten Commandments that he ever breaks. He never enjoys himself, and he never, so long as he lives, gives a moment's pleasure to any other living thing.

I can imagine the oyster lecturing a lion on the subject of morality.

"You never hear me," the oyster might say, "howling round camps and villages, making night hideous, frightening quiet folk out of their lives. Why don't you go to bed early, as I do? I never prowl round the oyster-bed, fighting other gentlemen oysters, making love to lady oysters already married. I never kill antelopes or missionaries. Why can't you live as I do on salt water and germs, or whatever it is that I do live on? Why don't you try to be more like me?"

An oyster has no evil passions, therefore we say he is a virtuous fish. We never ask ourselves--"Has he any good passions?"

-The Second Thoughts of an Idle Fellow

'I attribute the quarrelsome nature of the Middle Ages young men entirely to the want of the soothing weed. They had no work to do and could not smoke, and the consequence was they were forever fighting and rowing.'

-The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow

'Give an average baby a fair chance, and if it doesn't do something it oughtn't to a doctor should be called in at once.'

- The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow

The stage villain is superior to the villain of real life. The villain of real life is actuated by mere sordid and selfish motives. The stage villain does villainy, not for any personal advantage to himself, but merely from the love of the thing as an art. Villainy is to him its own reward; he revels in it.

-Stage Land

'Not only the foreign man, woman and child, but the foreign dog is born good. In England, if you happen to be the possessor of a dog, much of your time is taken up dragging him out of fights, quarrelling with the possessor of the other dog as to which began it, explaining to irate elderly ladies that he did not kill the cat, that the cat must have died of heart disease while running across the road, assuring disbelieving game-keepers that he is not your dog, that you have not the faintest notion whose dog he is. With the foreign dog, life is a peaceful proceeding. When the foreign dog sees a row, tears spring to his eyes: he hastens on and tries to find a policeman. When the foreign dog sees a cat in a hurry, he stands aside to allow her to pass. They dress the foreign dog--some of them--in a little coat, with a pocket for his handkerchief, and put shoes on his feet. They have not given him a hat--not yet. When they do, he will contrive by some means or another to raise it politely when he meets a cat he thinks he knows.'

-Idle Thoughts

'We gave advice to people about to marry--long, earnest advice that would, had they followed it, have made our circle of readers the envy of the whole married world. We told our subscribers how to make fortunes by keeping rabbits, giving facts and figures. The thing that must have surprised them was that we ourselves did not give up journalism and start rabbit-farming.'

-Three Men on the Bummel

'To a man it (a dinner) is as a good fairy's potion, and after it the world appears a brighter and a better place. A man who has dined satisfactorily experiences a yearning love toward all his fellow-creatures. He strokes the cat quite gently and calls it "poor pussy," in tones full of the tenderest emotion. He sympathizes with the members of the German band outside and wonders if they are cold; and for the moment he does not even hate his wife's relations.'

-The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow

1884 'Jack's Wife' in The Lamp 1885 On the Stage - and Off 1886 - On the Stage - and Off (reissue, illustrated edition) 1886 The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow 1886 Barbara 1888 Sunset 1888 Fennel 1888 Woodbarrow Farm 1888 Playwriting: A Handbook for Would-Be Dramatic Authors 1889 Stage-Land 1889 Three Men in a Boat 1890 New Lamps for Old 1890 Ruth 1890 Prince's Quest 1891 Told After Supper 1891 The Diary of a Pilgrimage 1892 Weeds. A Story in Seven Chapters 1892-98 The Idler (editor / contributor) 1893-98 To-Day (editor / contributor) 1894 My First Book (editor / contributor) 1895 The Rise of Dick Halward 1895 The Prude's Progress 1896 Biarritz 1897 Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green 1897 Women on Wheels 1898 The Second Thoughts of an Idle Fellow c. 1898 The MacHaggis 189- (?) The Russian Vagabond 1900 Three Men on the Bummel 1900 - Three Men on Wheels (American edition of the above) 1901 The Observations of Henry 1902 Paul Kelver 1902 Miss Hobbs 1903 Tea Table Talk 1904 Tommy and Co 1904 American Wives and Others 1905 Idle Ideas in 1905 1907 The Passing of the Third Floor Back 1908 The Angel and the Author - and Others 1909 They and I 1909 Fanny and the Servant Problem 1910 The Passing of the Third Floor Back 1911 The Master of Mrs Chilvers 1913 Esther Castways 1914 The Great Gamble 1914 Robina in Search of a Husband 1916 Malvina of Brittany 1916 - The Street of the Blank Wall (American edition of the above) 1917 Cook 1919 All Roads Lead to Calvary 1920 Foreword to Songs from the Heart of England: An Anthology of Walsall Poetry 1923 Anthony John 1923 A Miscellany of Sense and Nonsense 1926 My Life and Times 1926 The Celebrity 1927 The Soul of Nicholas Snyders