Mark Twain

“ I used to like the sea, but I was young then, and could easily get excited over any kind of monotony, and keep it up till the monotonies ran out, if it was a fortnight.
It vexes me to catch myself praising the clean private citizen Roosevelt, and blaming the soiled President Roosevelt, when I know that neither praise nor blame is due to him for any thought or word or deed of his, he being merely a helpless and irresponsible coffee-mill ground by the hand of God. ”

“ Just work itself is bliss when a man's been starving for it.
What right has Goethe, what right has Arnold, what right has any dictionary, to define the word Irreverence for me? What their ideals are is nothing to me. So long as I reverence my own ideals my whole duty is done, and I commit no profanation if I laugh at theirs. I may scoff at other people's ideals as much as I want to. It is my right and my privilege. No man has any right to deny it. ”

“ A foreigner can photograph the exteriors of a nation, but I think that that is as far as he can get. I think that no foreigner can report its interior—its soul, its life, its speech, its thought. I think that a knowledge of these things is acquirable in only one way ”

“ By common report she is endowed with more than earthly powers; and since he cannot have the boon of death, he appeals to her to drown his memory in forgetfulness of his griefs— forgetfulness 'which is death's equivalent'. ”

“ Art retains her privileges, Literature has lost hers. Somebody else may cipher out the whys and the wherefores and the consistencies of it—I haven't got time."
Albert Bigelow Paine, Mark Twain's biographer, likewise acknowledged its greatness, when he said, "1601 is a genuine classic, as classics of that sort go. It is better than the gross obscenities of Rabelais, and perhaps in some day to come, the taste that justified Gargantua and the Decameron will give this literary refugee shelter and setting among the more conventional writing of Mark Twain. Human taste is a curious thing ”

“ No throne was ever set up by the unhampered vote of a majority of any nation; and that hence no throne exists that has a right to exist, and no symbol of it, flying from any flagstaff, is righteously entitled to wear any device but the skull and crossbones of that kindred industry which differs from royalty only business-wise—merely as retail differs from wholesale. ”

“ To be busy is a man's only happiness—and I am—otherwise I should die Yrs. ”

“ There isn't one man in Washington, in civil office, who has the brains of Anson Burlingame—and I suppose if China had not seized and saved his great talents to the world, this government would have discarded him when his time was up. ”

“ Cooper's art has some defects. In one place in 'Deerslayer,' and in the restricted space of two-thirds of a page, Cooper has scored 114 offences against literary art out of a possible 115. It breaks the record.
I may be mistaken, but it does seem to me that Deerslayer is not a work of art in any sense; it does seem to me that it is destitute of every detail that goes to the making of a work of art; in truth, it seems to me that Deerslayer is just simply a literary delirium tremens. ”

“ It is in Bohemia, a short day's journey from Vienna, and being in the Austrian Empire is of course a health resort. The empire is made up of health resorts; it distributes health to the whole world. Its waters are all medicinal. They are bottled and sent throughout the earth; the natives themselves drink beer.
But I think I have no such prejudice. ”

“ When a man is a pessimist before 48 he knows too much; if he is an optimist after it, he knows too little.
TWAIN'S LETTERS V6 1907-1910 by A. B. Paine [MT#59] [mt6lt10.txt] 3198
That doctor had half an idea that there is something the matter with my brain. . . Doctors do know so little and they do charge so much for it. ”

“ He merely has some people in his mind, and an incident or two, also a locality. He knows these people, he knows the selected locality, and he trusts that he can plunge those people into those incidents with interesting results. ”

“ The humorous story depends for its effect upon the manner of the telling; the comic story and the witty story upon the matter.
The humorous story is strictly a work of art—high and delicate art—and only an artist can tell it; but no art is necessary in telling the comic and the witty story; anybody can do it. The art of telling a humorous story—understand, I mean by word of mouth, not print—was created in America, and has remained at home.
DEFENCE OF HARRIET SHELLEY, by Mark Twain [MT#32] [mtdhs10.txt] 3171
I have committed sins, of course ”

“ Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness
Uncomplaining impoliteness
Under the charitable moon
Used fine tooth combs—successfully
Venitian visiting young ladies
Wandering Jew
Wasn't enough of it to make a pie
We all like to see people seasick when we are not, ourselves
Well provided with cigars and other necessaries of life
What's a fair wind for us is a head wind to them
Whichever one they get is the one they want
Who have actually forgotten their mother tongue in three months
Worth while to get tired out, because one so enjoys resting ”

“ I have no race prejudices, and I think I have no colour prejudices nor caste prejudices nor creed prejudices. Indeed, I know it. I can stand any society. All that I care to know is that a man is a human being—that is enough for me; he can't be any worse.
HOW TELL A STORY AND OTHERS, by Mark Twain [MT#31] [mthts10.txt] 3250
There are several kinds of stories, but only one difficult kind—the humorous. I will talk mainly about that one. The humorous story is American, the comic story is English, the witty story is French. ”

“ DOUBLE BARRELLED DETECTIVE, by Mark Twain [MT#41] [mtdbd10.txt] 3180
"We ought never to do wrong when people are looking."
"The regularest man that ever was," said Jake Parker, the blacksmith: "you can tell when it's twelve just by him leaving, without looking at your Waterbury."
The sheriff that lets a mob take a prisoner away from him is the lowest- down coward there is. By the statistics there was a hundred and eighty- two of them drawing sneak pay in America last year. By the way it's going, pretty soon there 'll be a new disease in the doctor-books— sheriff complaint." ”

“ Received with a large silence that suggested doubt
Seventy is old enough—after that, there is too much risk
Silent lie and a spoken one
Sinking vessel, with no freight in her to throw over
Takes your enemy and your friend, working together, to hurt you
Thankfulness is not so general
The man with a new idea is a Crank until the idea succeeds
This is a poor old ship, and ought to be insured and sunk
To a delicate stomach even imaginary smoke can convey damage
Tourists showing how things ought to be managed
Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been ”

“ And I have been an author for 20 years and an ass for 55
Argument against suicide
Conversationally being yelled at
Dead people who go through the motions of life
Die in the promptest kind of a way and no fooling around
Heroic endurance that resembles contentment
Honest men must be pretty scarce
I wonder how they can lie so. ”

“ One could look long distances down them and see nothing but a dead-white emptiness, with silence to match. Of course I do not mean that you could see the silence—no, you could only hear it.
"That clock's wrong again. That clock hardly ever knows what time it is; and when it does know, it lies about it—which amounts to the same thing. Alfred!"
THOSE EXTRAORDINARY TWINS, by Mark Twain [MT#46] [mtext10.txt] 3185
A man who is born with the novel-writing gift has a troublesome time of it when he tries to build a novel. I know this from experience. He has no clear idea of his story ”

“ So, at the top of Chapter XVII, I put in a "Calendar" remark concerning July Fourth, and began the chapter with this statistic: "Rowena went out in the back yard after supper to see the fireworks and fell down the well and got drowned." It seemed abrupt, but I thought maybe the reader wouldn't notice it, because I changed the subject right away to something else.
THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER, by Mark Twain [MT#47] [mtmst10.txt] 3186
It was in 1590—winter. Austria was far away from the world, and asleep; it was still the Middle Ages in Austria, and promised to remain so forever. ”