3 quotations linked to The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow by or associated with Jerome K. Jerome, with source notes, explanations and related topics.
Idleness, love, mood, money, vanity, work, weather, domestic life, memory and comic reflection on ordinary habits.
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“That wastes time just as well and does not look so bad.”
The narrator recommends smoking over continued idle talk because both waste time but only one looks more respectable, turning appearance into the joke’s practical standard.
Source note: The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, “On Being Idle”; the line follows the suggestion to stop talking and have a smoke.
“Love is like the measles; we all have to go through it.”
Romantic love is compared to an unavoidable childhood illness, making intense emotion comic by treating it as something people catch, endure, and eventually recover from.
Source note: The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, “On Being in Love”; the comparison opens the essay’s mock-medical treatment of romance.
“A boy’s love comes from a full heart; a man’s is more often the result of a full stomach.”
The contrast punctures mature romantic eloquence by suggesting comfort and appetite can masquerade as passion, while youthful awkwardness may reveal more direct feeling.
Source note: The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, “On Being in Love”; the narrator contrasts youthful shyness with the polished declarations of older men.