'If you make one mistake, it's half a day out with the undertaker.'

'Steeplejacking's a bit of a spasmodic job, so you can play with your steam engine instead. It's a bit like being very rich.'

'It's a funny thing this celebrity. If you don't wave back you're a miserable bugger, if you do wave back you're a big-headed bugger. I don't know.'

'Anybody who destroys anything made of stone should be prosecuted. It is not all beautiful, but it took a man all day to make one stone.'

'I've never fell off a big chimney. You'd only fall off one of them once.'

No, gentlemen, if I am to be shot at, I want no man to be in the way of the bullet.

While thus he threw his Elbow round, Depopulating all the Ground, And, with his whistling Sythe, does cut Each stroke between the Earth and Root, The edged Ste…