Let us draw the curtain of charity over the rest of this scene

A man who is not born with the novel-writing gift has a troublesome time of it when he tries to build a novel. I know this from experience. He has no clear idea of his story; in fact he has no story. He merely has some people in his mind, and an incident or two, also a locality, and he trusts he can plunge those people into those incidents with interesting results.

We like to read about rich people in the newspapers; the papers know it, and they do their best to keep this appetite liberally fed.

What do you think of the human mind? I mean, in case you think there is a human mind.

...many foolish persons, wanderers from other parts, have the vain fashion of graving their names and the obscure places whence they come, upon its stones, which is silly and marketh the doer for a fool.

Wisdom teaches us that none but birds should go out early, and that not even birds should do it unless they are out of worms.

Sagebrush is a very fair fuel, but as a vegetable it is a distinguished failure. Nothing can abide the taste of it but the jackass and his illegitimate child the mule.