Take care what you say! I'll have no hard words. Wretch! If I am a wretch, who made me one? If I hate you and myself and the world, who made me hate … - Marcus Clarke

I am not a teetotaller — at least, not now. I used to be, but my constitution is not strong, and I could not stand the dissipation.

They are the cream of the social bowl—in their own estimation. The stone pillars which, according to the Arabic legend, hold the earth up. There never was, or can be, anything to equal them. You may be the best fellow in the world, the sole support of an aged mother, and the protector of a whole boarding-schoolful of orphan sisters. You may work like a horse, and give all your goods to feed the poor, but if you are not a Business Man, you are sounding brass or tinkling cymbal. To be a Business Man is a special gift—a sort of inherent virtue, like a cast in the eye.

I am rather good at it. I have been always borrowing. If I can borrow nothing else, I borrow ideas.