The only very marked difference between the average civilized man and the average savage is that the one is gilded and the other is painted.

There is not a single celebrated Southern name in any of the departments of human industry except those of war, assassination, lynching, murder, the duel, repudiation, & massacre.

I have never taken any exercise, except sleeping and resting, and I never intend to take any. Exercise is loathsome. And it cannot be any benefit when you are tired; and I was always tired.

The way it is now, the asylums can hold the sane people, but if we tried to shut up the insane we should run out of building materials.

My faculties are decaying now and soon I shall be so I cannot remember any but the things that never happened.

We are chameleons, and our partialities and prejudices change place with an easy and blesses facility, and we are soon wonted to the change and happy in it.

...there isn't often anything in Wagner opera that one would call by such a violent name as acting.