"Steam is the friend of man. Steam engines are very human. Their very weaknesses are understandable. Steam engines do not flash back and blow your face in. They do not short-circuit and rive your heart with imponderable electric force. They have arms and legs and warm hearts and veins full of warm vapour. Give us steam every time. You know where you are with steam."

“Terrible and sublime thought, that every moment is supreme for some man and woman, every hour the apotheosis of some passion!”

“It is extraordinary how many emotional storms one may weather in safety if one is ballasted with ever so little gold.”

“A young man must let his ideas grow, not be continually rooting them up to see how they are getting on.”

“The world belongs to the enthusiast who keeps cool.”

“If fate means you to lose, give him a good fight anyhow.”

“And what are those things at all?" demands my companion, diverted for a moment from the flowers. She nods towards a mass of dull-green affairs piled on mats or being lifted from big vans. She is a Cockney and displays surprise when she is told those things are bananas. She shrugs and turns again to the musk-roses, and forgets. But to me, as the harsh, penetrating odor of the green fruit cuts across the heavy perfume of the flowers, comes a picture of the farms in distant Colombia or perhaps Costa Rica. There is nothing like an odor to stir memories.”