The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman Quotes

“I begin with writing the first
sentence—and trusting to Almighty
God for the second.”
― Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

“Human nature is the same in all professions.”
― Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

“Shall we for ever make new books, as apothecaries make new mixtures, by pouring only out of one vessel into another?”
― Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

“Keyholes are the occasions of more sin and wickedness, than all other holes in this world put together.”
― Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

“…so long as a man rides his Hobby-Horse peaceably and quietly along the King's highway, and neither compels you or me to get up behind him,--pray, Sir, what have either you or I to do with it?”
― Laurence Sterne, 1713-1768, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

“I have a strong propensity in me to begin this chapter very nonsensically, and I will not balk my fancy.--Accordingly I set off thus:”
― Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

“I have undertaken, you see, to write not only my life, but my opinions also; hoping and expecting that your knowledge of my character, and of what kind of a mortal I am, by the one, would give you a better relish for the other: As you proceed further with me, the slight acquaintance which is now beginning betwixt us, will grow into familiarity; and that, unless one of us is in fault, will terminate in friendship.”
― Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

“I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me; had they duly considered how much depended upon what they were then doing; that not only the production of a rational Being was concerned in it, but that possibly the happy formation and temperature of his body, perhaps his genius and the very cast of his mind;—and, for aught they knew to the contrary, even the fortunes of his whole house might take their turn from the humours and dispositions which were then uppermost: Had they duly weighed and considered all this, and proceeded accordingly, I am verily persuaded I should have made a quite different figure in the world, from that, in which the reader is likely to see me.”
― Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

“The availability of books is not the same as reading them, nor reading the same as understanding them.”
― Ian Campbell Ross, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

“To write a book is for all the world like humming a song—be but in tune with yourself, madam, 'tis no matter how high or how low you take it.”
― Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

“Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine;—they are the life, the soul of reading;—take them out of this book for instance,—you might as well take the book along with them;”
― Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

“If death, said my father, reasoning with himself, is nothing but the separation of the soul from the body;--and if it is true that people can walk about and do their business without brains,--then certes the soul does not inhabit there.”
― Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

“It is the nature of an hypothesis, when once a man has conceived it, that it assimulates every thing to itself as proper nourishment; and, from the first moment of your begetting it, it generally grows the stronger by every thing you see, hear, read, or understand.”
― Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

“« Je suis persuadé que chaque fois qu'un homme sourit et mieux encore lorsqu'il rit, il ajoute quelque chose à la durée de sa vie.»”
― Sterne Laurence, Vie et opinions de Tristram Shandy

“Now there is nothing in this world I abominate worse, than to be interrupted in a story...”
― Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

“Alas, poor YORICK!”
― Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

“[O]f all the several ways of beginning a book which are now in practice throughout the known world, I am confident my own way of doing it is the best—I'm sure it is the most religious—for I begin with writing the first sentence—and trusting to Almighty God for the second.”
― Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

“There are a thousand unnoticed openings, continued my father, which let a penetrating eye at once into a man's soul; and I maintain it, added he, that a man of sense does not lay down his hat in coming into a room, -- or take it up in going out of it, but something escapes, which discovers him.”
― Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy

“I know there are readers in the world, as well as many other good people in it, who are no readers at all,—who find themselves ill at ease, unless they are let into the whole secret from first to last, of every thing which concerns you.”
― Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

“—My brother Toby, quoth she, is going to be married to Mrs. Wadman.
—Then he will never, quoth my father, be able to lie diagonally in his bed again as long as he lives.”
― Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

“I define a nose, as follows,—intreating only beforehand, and beseeching my readers, both male and female, of what age, complexion, and condition soever, for the love of God and their own souls, to guard against the temptations and suggestions of the devil, and suffer him by no art or wile to put any other ideas into their minds, than what I put into my definition.—For by the word Nose, throughout all this long chapter of noses, and in every other part of my work, where the word Nose occurs,—I declare, by that word I mean a Nose, and nothing more, or less.”
― Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

“Crack, crack—crack, crack—crack, crack—so this is Paris! quoth I (continuing in the same mood)—and this is Paris!—humph!—Paris! cried I, repeating the name the third time—
The first, the finest, the most brilliant—
—The streets however are nasty;
But it looks, I suppose, better than it smells—crack, crack—crack, crack—”
― Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

“—all I can say of the matter, is—That he has either a pumkin for his head—or a pippin for his heart,—and whenever he is dissected 'twill be found so.”
― Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

“—I won't go about to argue the point with you,—'tis so,—and I am persuaded of it, madam, as much as can be, "That both man and woman bear pain or sorrow, (and, for aught I know, pleasure too) best in a horizontal position.”
― Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

“Cursed luck! —said he, biting his lip as he shut the door, —for man to be master of one of the finest chains of reasoning in nature, —and have a wife at the same time with such a head-piece, that he cannot hang up a single inference within side of it, to save his soul from destruction.”
― Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

“Tell me, ye learned, shall we for ever be adding so much to the bulk—so little to the stock?

Shall we for ever make new books, as apothecaries make new mixtures, by pouring only out of one vessel into another?

Are we for ever to be twisting, and untwisting the same rope? for ever in the same track—for ever at the same pace?

Shall we be destined to the days of eternity, on holy-days, as well as working-days, to be shewing the relicks of learning, as monks do the relicks of their saints—without working one—one single miracle with them?”
― Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

“I am this month one whole year older than I was this time twelve-month; and having got, as you perceive, almost into the middle of my fourth volume—and no farther than to my first day's life—'tis demonstrative that I have three hundred and sixty-four days more life to write just now, than when I first set out; so that instead of advancing, as a common writer, in my work with what I have been doing at it—on the contrary, I am just thrown so many volumes back—”
― Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

“I wish my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me;”
― Lawrence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

“Now—Ten thousand, and ten thousand times ten thousand (for matter and motion are infinite) are the ways by which a hat may be dropped upon the ground, without any effect.—Had he flung it, or thrown it, or cast it, or skimmed it, or squirted, or let it slip or fall in any possible direction under heaven,—or in the best direction that could be given to it,—had he dropped it like a goose—like a puppy—like an ass—or in doing it, or even after he had done, had he looked like a fool,—like a ninny—like a nicompoop—it had fail'd, and the effect upon the heart had been lost.”
― Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

“Button-holes! there is something lively in the very idea of 'em - and trust me, when I get amongst 'em - you gentry with great beards - look as grave as you will - I'll make merry work with my button-holes - I shall have 'em all to myself - 'tis a maiden subject - I shall run foul of no man's wisdom or fine sayings in it.”
― Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman