If, of all words of tongue and pen, The saddest are, It might have been,' More sad are these we daily see: 'It is, but hadn't ought to be!'

A bird in the hand is a certainty, but a bird in the bush may sing.

One big vice in a man is apt to keep out a great many smaller ones.

Each lost day has its patron saint!

Nobody shoulders a rifle in defense of a boarding house.

Crude at first [the short story] received a literary polish in the press, but its dominant quality remained. It was concise and condense, yet suggestive. It was delightfully extravagant - or a miracle of understatement

Which I wish to remark-- And my language is plain,-- That for ways that are dark And for tricks that are vain, The heathen Chinee is peculiar.