I haven't any right to criticize books, and I don't do it except when I hate them. I often want to criticize Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can't conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Every time I read Pride and Prejudice I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone.
Mark TwainI have thought many times since that if poets when they get discouraged would blow their brains out, they could write very much better when they got well.
Mark TwainThere was a great difference in boats, of course. For a long time I was on a boat that was so slow we used to forget what year it was we left port in.
Mark TwainThere is no character, howsoever good and fine, but it can be destroyed by ridicule, howsoever poor and witless. Observe the ass, for instance: his character is about perfect, he is the choicest spirit among all the humbler animals, yet see what ridicule has brought him to. Instead of feeling complimented when we are called an ass, we are left in doubt.
Mark Twain