There warn't anybody at the church, except maybe a hog or two, for there warn't any lock on the door, and hogs likes a puncheon floor in summer-time because it's cool. If you notice, most folks don't go to church only when they've got to; but a hog is different.

The test of any good fiction is that you should care something for the characters; the good to succeed, the bad to fail. The trouble with most fiction is that you want them all to land in hell, together, as quickly as possible.

To arrive at a just estimate of a renowned man's character one must judge it by the standards of his time, not ours.

The cigar-box which the European calls a 'lift' needs but to be compared with our elevators to be appreciated. The lift stops to reflect between floors. That is all right in a hearse, but not in elevators. The American elevator acts like a man's patent purge-it works.

The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.

Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work.

We can't reach old age by another man's road.