Mark Twain

Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often.

I refused to attend his funeral. But I wrote a very nice letter explaining that I approved of it.

Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform.

To succeed in life, you need to things: ignorance and confidence.

It isn’t safe to sit in judgment upon another person’s illusion when you are not on the inside. While you are thinking it is a dream, he may be knowing it is a planet.

It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native criminal class except Congress.

Tis the good reader that makes the good book.

The multitude of books is making us ignorant.

Make it a rule never to give a child a book you would not read yourself.

The oldest books are still only just out to those who have not read them.

Some books leave us free and some books make us free.

What can we see, read, acquire, but ourselves. Take the book, my friend, and read your eyes out, you will never find there what I find.

Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations.

The last book I read was the book I’ve been rereading most of my life, The Fountainhead.

The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbours, kindle it at home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.

A multitude of books distracts the mind.

Books are the best of things if well used; if abused, among the worst. They are good for nothing but to inspire. I had better never see a book than be warped by its attraction clean out of my own orbit, and made a satellite instead of a system.

As a child I used to read Gone with the Wind over and over again. I wanted to be Scarlett O’Hara. I never wanted to believe that it was possible that there could be infidelity. I never wanted to be believe that it was even possible for a man to look another way, even for a moment. My bubble of monogamy was pierced in a harsh way.

Why not blame the libraries? They’re full of violent books.

Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and an amusement. Then it becomes a mistress, then it becomes a master, then it becomes a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster, and fling him to the public.

Books, not which afford us a cowering enjoyment, but in which each thought is of unusual daring; such as an idle man cannot read, and a timid one would not be entertained by, which even make us dangerous to existing institution – such call I good books.