My first American ancestor, gentlemen, was an Indian-an early Indian. Your ancestors skinned him alive, and I am an orphan. All those Salem witches were ancestors of mine. Your people made it tropical for them. . . . The first slave brought into New England out of Africa was an ancestor of mine-for I am a mixed breed, an infinitely shaded and exquisite Mongrel.

At noon I observed a bevy of nude young native women bathing in the sea, and I went and sat down on their clothes to keep them from being stolen.

A new oath holds pretty well; but... when it is become old, and frayed out, and damaged by a dozen annual retryings of its remains, it ceases to be serviceable; any little strain will snap it.

Writing is the easiest thing in the world.... Just try it sometime. I sit up with a pipe in my mouth and a board on my knees and I scribble away.

what is joy without sorrow? what is success without failure? what is a win without a loss? what is health without illness? you have to experience each if you are to appreciate the other. there is always going to be suffering. it’s how you look at your suffering, how you deal with it, that will define you.

If you should rear a duck in the heart of the Sahara, no doubt it would swim if you brought it to the Nile.

Good judgment comes from experience. And where does experience come from? Experience comes from bad judgment.