“First catch your hare, said Mrs Beeton’s famous cooking instructions for the jugged variety.”

The Economist February 23, 1991

“Indeed, it would be paradoxical if the end were amusement; if we toiled and suffered all our lives long to amuse ourselves. For we choose practically everything for the sake of something else, except happiness, because it is the end. To spend effort and toil for the sake of amusement seems silly and unduly childish; but, on the other hand the maxim of Anacharsis, ‘Play to work harder,’ seems to be on the right lines, because amusement is a form of relaxation, and people need relaxation because they cannot exert themselves continuously.”

Aristotle Ethics

“Who am I that the children of men should have shaped and carved for me four extra wooden legs besides the two that were given me by the gods?”

G.K. Chesterton, “On Being Moved,” in Alberto Manguel, ed., On Lying in Bed and Other Essays by G.K. Chesterton

“There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself.”

Philip Marlowe’s internal monologue in Raymond Chandler The Long Goodbye

“And now, as we birds say, nests before eggs.”

The Raven in C.S. Lewis The Horse and His Boy

“What’s the point of being a hedonist if you’re not having a good time?”

Lily Tomlin’s "The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe" show, quoted in The New Republic Oct. 7, 1991

“‘It doesn’t really matter.’” “‘Here goes nothing.’” “‘It will be interesting to see what happens.’”

The three things the main character would say to himself, in that order, before paratroop-jumping during World War Two, in Sloan Wilson The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit

“As long as a man stands in his own way, everything seems to be in his way.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson, quoted on www.brainyquote.com/quotes/ralph_waldo_emerson_384371