Eat good dinners and drink good wine; read good novels if you have the leisure and see good plays; fall in love, if there is no reason why you should… - Jerome K. Jerome

We, in this age, do not see the beauty of that dog. We are too familiar with it. It is like the sunset and stars: we are not awed by their loveliness because they are common to our eyes. So it is with that china dog.

I want a house that has got over all its troubles; I don't want to spend the rest of my life bringing up a young and inexperienced house.

agreed with George, and suggested that we should seek out some retired and old-world spot, far from the madding crowd, and dream away a sunny week among its drowsy lanes — some half-forgotten nook, hidden away by the fairies, out of reach of the noisy world — some quaint-perched eyrie on the cliffs of Time, from whence the surging waves of the nineteenth century would sound far-off and faint.