Ronald Reagan

“ In many ways Twain remains a riddle. He still awaits a definitive biography. He would probably have been amused at all the fuss that has been made over him and chuckle at some of the theories the critics have spun about him and his works. Self-deprecation was the hallmark of his humor; he loved to puncture pomposity-even his own.
New York, Connecticut, California, and Hawaii are only some of the States that can claim to have shaped his life, but Hannibal, Missouri, where he grew up, will always have a prior claim. ”

“ Today, as we commemorate the 150th anniversary of Mark Twain's birth-and as Halley's Comet again brightens the skies of our planet-the wit, the wisdom, and the inimitable style of Mark Twain continue to delight and instruct young and old-in more than 50 languages. ”

“ Like the comet that startled the night sky at his birth and returned as a bright chariot to "carry him home" 75 years later, the literary achievements of Mark Twain can truly be called an "astronomical" phenomenon.
Born Samuel Langhorne Clemens, November 30, 1835, in Florida, Missouri, he enjoyed an idyllic boyhood in Hannibal, Missouri. There by the banks of the mighty Mississippi, he came to know and love the common people of America. Their crotchets and kindnesses; their exasperating foibles; their endearing loyalties ”