The report of my illness grew out of his (James Clemens) illness. The report of my death was an exaggeration.

A sin takes on a new and real terror when there seems a chance that it is going to be found out.

We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world and it's efficiency is only marred by the difficulty of finding twelve men every day who don't know anything and can't read-

I conceive that the right way to write a story for boys is to write so that it will not only interest boys but strongly interest any man who has ever been a boy. That immensely enlarges the audience.

You can tell German wine from vinegar by the label.

What a wee little part of a person's life are his acts and his words! His real life is led in his head, and is known to none but himself. All day long, the mill of his brain is grinding, and his thoughts, not those of other things, are his history. These are his life, and they are not written. Everyday would make a whole book of 80,000 words -- 365 books a year. Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man -- the biography of the man himself cannot be written.

Let us be grateful to Adam: he cut us out of the blessing of idleness and won for us the curse of labor.