Anybody can have ideas-the difficulty is to express them without squandering a quire of paper on an idea that ought to be reduced to one glittering paragraph.

When the world is made to be idiot-proof, the world will become overpopulated with idiots.

Slang in a woman's mouth is not obscene, it only sounds so.

It was a place of sin, loose women, whiskey and gambling. It was no place for a good Presbyterian, and I did not long remain one.

The country is the real thing, the substantial thing, the eternal thing, it is the thing to watch over and care for and be loyal to; institutions are extraneous. . . .

Steal a chicken if you get a chance, Huck, because if you don't want it, someone else does and a good deed ain't never forgotten.

Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.