Mark Twain

The trouble with you Chicago people is that you think you are the best people down here, whereas you are merely the most numerous.

Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get.

Temperate temperance is best; intemperate temperance injures the cause of temperance.

Religion was invented when the first con man met the first fool.

In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.

Damn the subjunctive. It brings all our writers to shame.

Life is not an easy matter… You cannot live through it without falling into frustration and cynicism unless you have before you a great idea which raises you above personal misery, above weakness, above all kinds of perfidy and baseness.

The menu is not the meal.

Smiling is one of the highest forms of meditation.

A person that started in to carry a cat home by the tail was getting knowledge that was always going to be useful to him, and warn’t ever going to grow dim or doubtful.

I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.

Improvements have been coming so quickly that the past is being lost to the rising generation, and it can be preserved only by putting it in a form where it may be seen and felt. That is the reason behind this collection.

Would you believe me if I said you were three shades short of all my favorite hues and that I’ve been trying for years to pick words from my garden throat in attempts to explain to you all the things I can’t explain. Or what if I said I have nothing to say other than I love you in the simplest of ways.

Grief is a process to go through, not a destination in which to wallow. In a process, you keep putting one foot in front of the other, and each little step is part of your healing.

Efficiency is intelligent laziness.

To me, you’ll always be the rising suns, the sinking moons, and all the stars that come between the sound of rain and river stones, the warmth of my sheets, the ache in my bones.

Here I am alive, and it’s not my fault, so I have to try and get by as best I can without hurting anybody until death takes over.

My Grandmother is over eighty and still doesn’t need glasses. Drinks right out of the bottle.

I grew up in a very masculine environment. So I was around a lot of men, my brothers and their friends. There was just a lot of guys around.

Punctuality is the virtue of the bored.

There is a great difference between worry and concern. A worried person sees a problem, and a concerned person solves a problem.