Perfect grammar - persistent, continuous, sustained - is the fourth dimension, so to speak; many have sought it, but none has found it.

Life does not consist mainly, or even largely, of facts and happenings. It consists mainly ofthe storm of thought that is forever flowing through one's head.

The secret of getting ahead is getting started

A successful book is not made of what is in it, but what is left out of it.

What, sir, would the people of the earth be without woman? They would be scarce, sir, almighty scarce.

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

I have no liking for novels or stories - none in the world; and so, whenever I read one - which is not oftener than once in two years, and even in these same cases I seldom read beyond the middle of the book - my distaste for the vehicle always taints my judgment of the literature itself, as a matter of course; and also of course makes my verdict valuless. Are you saying "You have written stories yourself." Quite true: but the fact that an Indian likes to scalp people is no evidence that he likes to be scalped.