"I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours."
— Jerome K. Jerome

"I can't sit still and see another man slaving and working. I want to get up and superintend, and walk round with my hands in my pockets, and tell him what to do. It is my energetic nature. I can't help it."
— Jerome K. Jerome (Three Men in a Boat)

"It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of
work to do. There is no fun in doing nothing when you have nothing to
do. Wasting time is merely an occupation then, and a most exhausting
one. Idleness, like kisses, to be sweet must be stolen.
"
— Jerome K. Jerome (Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow)

"It is always the best policy to tell the truth, unless of course you are an exceptionally good liar."
— Jerome K. Jerome

"But who wants to be foretold the weather? It is bad enough when it comes, without our having the misery of knowing about it beforehand."
— Jerome K. Jerome (Three Men in a Boat)

"They [dogs] never talk about themselves but listen to you while you talk about yourself, and keep up an appearance of being interested in the conversation. "
— Jerome K. Jerome

"It is always the best policy to speak the truth--unless, of course, you are an exceptionally good liar. "
— Jerome K. Jerome

"Idleness, like kisses, to be sweet must be stolen."
— Jerome K. Jerome (Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow)

"I like idling when I ought not to be idling; not when it is the only thing I have to do. Thatis my pig-headed nature. The time when I like best to stand with my back to the fire, calculating how much I owe, is when my desk is heaped highest with letters that must be answered by the next post. When I like to dawdle longest over my dinner is when I have a heavy evening's work before me. And if, for some urgent reason, I ought to be up particularly early in the morning, it is then, more than at any other time, that I love to lie an extra half-hour in bed.

Ah! how delicious it is to turn over and go to sleep again: "just for
five minutes." Is there any human being, I wonder, besides the hero of
a Sunday-school "tale for boys," who ever gets up willingly?"
— Jerome K. Jerome (Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow)

"(Speaking of the Cistercian monks) A grim fraternity, passing grim lives in that sweet spot, that God had made so bright! Strange that Nature's voices all around them--the soft singing of the waters, the wisperings of the river grass, the music of the rushing wind--should not have taught them a truer meaning of life than this. They listened there, through the long days, in silence, waiting for a voice from heaven; and all day long and through the solemn night it spoke to them in myriad tones, and they heard it not. "
— Jerome K. Jerome

"You can never rouse Harris. There is no poetry about Harris- no wild yearning for the unattainable. Harris never "weeps, he knows not why." If Harris's eyes fill with tears, you can bet it is because Harris has been eating raw onions, or has put too much Worcester over his chop.

If you were to stand at night by the sea-shore with Harris, and say:

"Hark! do you not hear? Is it but the mermaids singing deep below the waving waters; or sad spirits, chanting dirges for white corpses held by seaweed?" Harris would take you by the arm, and say:

"I know what it is, old man; you've got a chill. Now you come along with me. I know a place round the corner here, where you can get a drop of the finest Scotch whisky you ever tasted- put you right in less than no time."

Harris always does know a place round the corner where you can get something brilliant in the drinking line. I believe that if you met Harris up in Paradise (supposing such a thing likely), he would immediately greet you with:

"So glad you've come, old fellow; I've found a nice place round the corner here, where you can get some really first-class nectar."
— Jerome K. Jerome (Three Men in a Boat)

"It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of
work to do. There is no fun in doing nothing when you have nothing to
do. Wasting time is merely an occupation then, and a most exhausting
one. Idleness, like kisses, to be sweet must be stolen."
— Jerome K. Jerome

"I like work; it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours."
— Jerome K. Jerome (Three Men in a Boat)

"It seems to me so shocking to see the precious hours of a man's life - the priceless moments that will never come back to him again - being wasted in a mere brutish sleep."
— Jerome K. Jerome

""Cultivate," I said, "a sense of humor. From a humorous point of view this lunch is rather good."
— Jerome K. Jerome (They And I)

"How good one feels when one is full -- how satisfied with ourselves and with the world! People who have tried it, tell me that a clear conscience makes you very happy and contented; but a full stomach does the business quite as well, and is cheaper, and more easily obtained."
— Jerome K. Jerome (Three Men in a Boat)

"It takes 3 girls to tow always; two to hold the rope, and the other one runs round and round, and giggles."
— Jerome K. Jerome (Three Men in a Boat)

"That the boat did not upset I simply state as a fact. Why it did not upset I am unable to offer any reason. I have often thought about the matter since, but I have never succeeded in arriving at any satisfactory explanation of the phenomenon.

Possibly the result may have been brought about by the natural obstinacy of all things in this world. The boat may possibly have come to the conclusion, judging from a cursory view of our behaviour, that we had come out for a morning's suicide, and had thereupon determined to disappoint us. That is the only suggestion I can offer.
"
— Jerome K. Jerome (Three Men in a Boat)