“I have observed that whenever a Boston author dies, New York immediately becomes a great literary centre.”

A sharp joke about literary rivalry and cultural self-importance · Ponkapog Papers, Leaves from a Note Book (1903)

• Culture
• Humour
• Literature

“French novels with metaphysical or psychological prefaces are always certain to be particularly indecent.”

A mischievously sweeping piece of literary criticism · Ponkapog Papers, Leaves from a Note Book (1903)

• Criticism
• Humour
• Literature

“The humor and imagination which are diffused through other peoples concentrate themselves from time to time in individual Englishmen.”

Suggesting that exceptional humour and imagination can emerge vividly from an apparently sober culture · Ponkapog Papers, Leaves from a Note Book (1903)

• Culture
• Humour
• Imagination

“When an Englishman is not highly imaginative he is apt to be the most matter-of-fact of mortals.”

A characteristically dry observation on national temperament and imagination · Ponkapog Papers, Leaves from a Note Book (1903)

• Character
• Humour
• Imagination

“When the story is finished, I go over the dialogue and strike out four fifths of the long speeches. I fancy that makes my characters pretty mad.”

Combining practical advice about ruthless editing with Aldrich's characteristic dry humour · Ponkapog Papers, Leaves from a Note Book (1903)

• Humour
• Skill
• Writing

“A great city like this is the only geography for such a character. He would be impossible in a small country town, where everybody knows everybody and what everybody has for lunch.”

Humorously contrasting the anonymity of city life with the intimate scrutiny of small communities · Ponkapog Papers, Leaves from a Note Book (1903)

• Community
• Humour
• Society

“Books that have become classics—books that have had their day and now get more praise than perusal—always remind me of venerable colonels and majors and captains.”

Gently mocking the tendency to honour canonical books more often than actually read them · Ponkapog Papers, Leaves from a Note Book (1903)

• Books
• Humour
• Reading

“Humor is a delicate shrub, with the passing hectic flush of its time.”

Comparing humour to something living whose appeal may fade as its cultural moment passes · Ponkapog Papers, Leaves from a Note Book (1903)

• Culture
• Humour
• Time

“American humor is nearly as ephemeral as the flowers that bloom in the spring. Each generation has its own crop, and, as a rule, insists on cultivating a new kind.”

Observing that comedy often belongs closely to the tastes and circumstances of its own generation · Ponkapog Papers, Leaves from a Note Book (1903)

• Change
• Culture
• Humour

“The fool and his bookplate are soon parted.”

A bibliophile's joke about destroying the meaning of ownership marks by distributing them as collectibles · Ponkapog Papers, Leaves from a Note Book (1903)

• Books
• Humour
• Wit

“Perhaps the purest English spoken is that of the English folk who have resided abroad ever since the Elizabethan period, or thereabouts.”

A playful observation on language, pronunciation and the preservation of older forms · Ponkapog Papers, Leaves from a Note Book (1903)

• Culture
• Humour
• Language

“Save us from our friends—our enemies we can guard against.”

A wry reminder that well-intentioned friends can sometimes cause the difficulties enemies cannot · Ponkapog Papers, Leaves from a Note Book (1903)

• Friendship
• Humour
• Wisdom

“After a debauch of thunder-shower, the weather takes the pledge and signs it with a rainbow.”

Turning the clearing of a storm into a playful image of repentance and renewal · Essay collection, Ponkapog Papers (1903)

• Humour
• Imagination
• Nature

“The man who suspects his own tediousness is yet to be born.”

A dry observation on how difficult it is to recognise one's own capacity to bore others · Essay collection, Ponkapog Papers (1903)

• Character
• Humour
• Wit

“God forbid that I should say anything really condemnatory of any book by any brother-novelist, alive or dead.”

A wry declaration of fellow feeling towards other writers before offering criticism · The English Novel

• Criticism
• Humour
• Literature

“I may be perfectly wrong in almost everything that I say. If I am, that is the end of me.”

A characteristically dry acknowledgement of the risks of literary judgement · Author’s Apology, The English Novel

• Criticism
• Humility
• Humour

“Come, you will not get another opportunity like this for three hundred years.”

Original: Dewch, chewch chi ddim cyfle fel hyn eto am dri chan mlynedd. — A playful invitation to seize an opportunity unlikely to return soon · Chairman's remark at John Penry tercentenary lecture (Welsh)

• Humour
• Time

“The Eisteddfod is old. How old we do not know; like many another lady, she is too old for us politely to ask her age.”

Original: Y mae'r Eisteddfod yn hen—pa mor hen nid ydym yn gwybod y mae hi, fel llawer boneddiges arall, yn rhy hen i ni allu yn llednais ofyn ei hoedran. — Using gentle humour to evoke the mysterious antiquity of the Eisteddfod · Gorsedd paper, National Eisteddfod Rhyl, 1892 (Welsh)

• Humour
• Time
• Tradition

“Let something be read that will open the class's mind rather than crack its head.”

Original: Darllener rhywbeth wna i'r dosbarth agor ei feddwl, ac nid agor y crib. — A humorous plea for education that opens the mind rather than overwhelming the learner · Address, Y Paratoad Goreu ar Gyfer y Weinidogaeth, 1895 (Welsh)

• Education
• Humour
• Learning

“He was naturally very near the point of translation, and gave a vague impression that he did not require to be born again, but remained on earth for the benefit of American tourists.”

A comic portrait of an elderly royal servant encountered near Windsor · Letter from Stoke Poges, 1888

• Humour
• Mortality

“One felt that the Hotel Company were overdoing it! And I wanted to order up the hotel proprietor and ask him to take it down.”

Turning an overwhelmingly picturesque Alpine evening into a theatrical joke · Letter from Geneva, 1895

• Beauty
• Humour
• Nature

“Of course I know the whole thing was arranged by the Grand Hotel Company that run Switzerland.”

Joking that Switzerland's spectacular scenery seemed almost too perfectly staged · Letter from Geneva, 1895

• Beauty
• Humour
• Nature

“I will come next Monday—even though I promise.”

Making a joke of his own notorious difficulty in keeping social engagements · Conversation, recalled by Moncure Conway

• Friendship
• Humour

“Is there no drier sport to be had in all Great Britain?”

Continuing his teasing complaint about Scottish salmon-fishing · Letter to William Black, 1885

• Humour
• Nature