Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it.

The man who is ostentatious of his modesty is twin to the statue that wears a fig-leaf.

If you invent two or three people and turn them loose in your manuscript, something is bound to happen to them -- you can't help it; and then it will take you the rest of the book to get them out of the natural consequences of that occurrence, and so first thing you know, there's your book all finished up and never cost you an idea.

Next to possessing genius one's self is the power of appreciating it in others.

The laws of Nature, that is to say the laws of God, plainly made every human being a law unto himself, we must steadfastly refuse to obey those laws, and we must as steadfastly stand by the conventions which ignore them, since the statutes furnish us peace, fairly good government, and stability, and therefore are better for us than the laws of God, which would soon plunge us into confusion and disorder and anarchy if we should adopt them.

The southerner talks music.

His money is twice tainted: taint yours and taint mine.