A joke, even if it be a lame one, is nowhere so keenly relished or quickly applauded as in a murder trial.

Medicine has made all its progress during the past fifty years. ... How many operations that are now in use were known fifty years ago?-they were not operations, they were executions.

Wagner has some great moments, but a lot of miserable half hours.

As to the adjective: when in doubt, strike it out.

There's something in it when a body like the widow or the parson prays, but it don't work for me, and I reckon it don't work for only just the right kind.

I was standing in our dining-room thinking of nothing in particular, when a cablegram was put into my hand. It said, 'Susy was peacefully released today.' It is one of the mysteries of our nature that a man, all unprepared, can receive a thunder-stroke like that and live.

The Bible has noble poetry in it... and some good morals and a wealth of obscenity, and upwards of a thousand lies.