Laurence Sterne

“Writing, when properly managed, is but a different name for conversation.”

“Men tire themselves in pursuit of rest.”

“We live in a world beset on all sides by mysteries and riddles.”

“Every time a man smiles, and much more when he laughs, it adds something to this fragment of life.”

“What a large volume of adventures may be grasped within this little span of life by him who interests his heart in everything.”

“The history of a man's own life is, of all other histories, the most valuable to himself.”

“Of all the cants which are canted in this canting world... the cant of criticism is the most tormenting!”

“A man's body and his mind... are exactly like a jerkin and a jerkin's lining; rumple the one, you rumple the other.”