If she speaks, it will only be a pleasant word or two; should she have anything important to say, the moment will be after tea, not before it; this she knows by instinct. – George Gissing, The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft, 1903 (of the housekeeper b

The overwhelming sorrow of finding a cup of tea you forgot about. – Rob Temple, @SoVeryBritish (Very British Problems: Making Life Awkward for Ourse

I declare,… a man who wishes to make his way in life could do nothing better than go through the world with a boiling tea-kettle in his hand. – Sydney Smith, quoted in A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith: Volume I by his d