Tristram Shandy; and A Sentimental Journey Quotes

“Pray my Dear, quoth my mother, have you not forgot to wind up the clock?—Good G—! cried my father, making an exclamation, but taking care to moderate his voice at the same time,——Did ever woman, since the creation of the world, interrupt a man with such a silly question? Pray, what was your father saying?————Nothing.”
― Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy; and A Sentimental Journey

“Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine;——they are the life, the soul of reading;—take them out of this book, for instance,—you might as well take the book along with them;—one cold eternal winter would reign in every page of it; restore them to the writer,——he steps forth like a bridegroom,—bids All hail, brings in variety, and forbids the appetite to fail.”
― Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy and A Sentimental Journey

“was I Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, brought forth into this scurvy and disastrous world of ours.—I wish I had been born in the Moon, or in any of the planets (except Jupiter or Saturn, because I never could bear cold weather) for it could not well have fared worse with me in any of them (though I will not answer for Venus) than it has in this vile, dirty planet of ours,—which o’ my conscience, with reverence be it spoken, I take to be made up of the shreds and clippings of the rest;——not but the planet is well enough, provided a man could be born in it to a great title or to a great estate; or could anyhow contrive to be called up to public charges, and employments of dignity or power;—but that is not my case;——and”
― Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy and A Sentimental Journey