I never could keep a promise. I do not blame myself for this weakness, because the fault must lie in my physical organization. It is likely that such a very liberal amount of space was given to the organ which enables me to make promises that the organ which should enable me to keep them was crowded out. But I grieve not. I like no half-way things. I had rather have one faculty nobly developed than two faculties of mere ordinary capacity.

If you can't get a compliment any other way, pay yourself one.

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.

Whatever a man's age, he can reduce it several years by putting a bright-colored flower in his button-hole.

December is the toughest month of the year. Others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, October, August, and February.

To refuse awards is another way of accepting them with more noise than is normal.

On with dance, let joy be unconfined, is my motto; whether there's any dance to dance or any joy to unconfined.