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Whose property is my body? Probably mine. I so regard it. If I experiment with it, who must be answerable? I, not the State. If I choose injudiciously, does the State die? Oh no.
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I don't see no p'ints about that frog that's any better'n any other frog.
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A critic never made or killed a book or a play. The people themselves are the final judges. It is their opinion that counts. After all, the final test is truth. But the trouble is that most writers regard truth as their most valuable possession and therefore are most economical in its use.
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...when the human race is not grotesque it is because it is asleep and losing its opportunity.
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Let us make a special effort to stop communicating with each other, so we can have some conversation.
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I make it a rule never to smoke while I'm sleeping.
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So there ain't nothing more to write about, and I am rotten glad of it, because if I'd a knowed what a trouble it was to make a book I wouldn't a tackled it and aint't agoing to no more. But I reckon I got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she's going to adopt me and sivilize me and I can't stand it. I been there before.
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Mr. Roosevelt is the most formidable disaster that has befallen the country since the Civil War-but the vast mass of the nation loves him, is frantically fond of him, even idolizes him. This is the simple truth. It sounds like a libel upon the intelligence of the human race, but it isn't; there isn't any way to libel the intelligence of the human race.
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He says every man is a moon and has a side which he turns toward nobody: you have to slip around behind if you want to see it.
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I have no color prejudices nor caste prejudices nor creed prejudices. All I care to know is that a man is a human being, and that is enough for me; he can't be any worse.
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Formerly, if you killed a man, it was possible that you were insane-but now, if you, having friends and money, kill a man, it is evidence that you are a lunatic.
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Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
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I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.
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Grief can take care if itself, but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.
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Persons who think there is no such thing as luck-good or bad-are entitled to their opinion, although I think they ought to be shot for it.
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It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog.
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The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice.
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In 'Huckleberry Finn,' I have drawn Tom Blankenship exactly as he was. He was ignorant, unwashed, insufficiently fed; but he had as good a heart as ever any boy had.
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Tomorrow night I appear for the first time before a Boston audience - 4000 critics.
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I wish Europe would let Russia annihilate Turkey a little-not much, but enough to make it difficult to find the place again without a divining-rod or a diving-bell.
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A crowded police docket is the surest of all signs that trade is brisk and money plenty.
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...in October 1866 I broke out as a lecturer, and from that day to this I have always been able to gain my living without doing any work; for the writing of books and magazine matter was always play, not work. I enjoyed it; it was merely billiards to me.
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I started out alone to seek adventures. You don't really have to seek them-that is nothing but a phrase-they come to you.
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The 'bus is English. When that is said, all is said. As a rule, any English thing is nineteen times as strong and twenty-three times as heavy as it needs to be. The 'bus fills these requirements.