Mark Twain

Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other.

Both marriage and death ought to be welcome: The one promises happiness, doubtless the other assures it.

A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.

I don’t like to commit myself about heaven and hell – you see, I have friends in both places.

Prophesy is a good line of business, but it is full of risks.

We have the best government that money can buy.

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

A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting.

We are too civil to books. For a few golden sentences we will turn over and actually read a volume of four or five hundred pages.

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

If you are going to get anywhere in life you have to read a lot of books.

Tis the good reader that makes the good book.

I love books.

An autobiography is not about pictures; it’s about the stories; it’s about honesty and as much truth as you can tell without coming too close to other people’s privacy.

A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must lay it down and commence living on its hint… What I began by reading I must finish by acting.

There are books which take rank in your life with parents and lovers and passionate experiences, so medicinal, so stringent, so revolutionary, so authoritative.

A multitude of books distracts the mind.

I don’t care if a reader hates one of my stories, just as long as he finishes the book.

Just the omission of Jane Austen’s books alone would make a fairly good library out of a library that hadn’t a book in it.

Books that you carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are most useful after all.

So please, oh please, we beg, we pray, go throw your TV set away, and in its place you can install, a lovely bookshelf on the wall.