I should be sorry to think it was the publishers themselves they got up this entire little flutter to enable them to unload a book that was taking too much room in their cellars, but you can never tell what a publisher will do. I have been one myself.

Gratitude is a debt which usually goes on accumulating like blackmail; the more you pay, the more is exacted.

The cost of living hasn't effected its popularity.

If you had made the acquiring of ignorance the study of your life, you could not have graduated with higher honor than you could to-day.

What is the difference between a taxidermist and a tax collector? The taxidermist takes only your skin.

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.

The gentle reader will never, never know what a consummate ass he can become until he goes abroad.