I was in one of the most grand attitudes I ever struck, with my arm stretched up pointing to the sun. It was a noble effect. You could see the shudder sweep the mass like a wave.

In all my travels the thing that has impressed me the most is the universal brotherhood of man-what there is of it.

His head was an hour-glass; it could stow an idea, but it had to do it a grain at a time, not the whole idea at once.

Everything human is pathetic. The secret source of humor itself is not joy but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven.

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.

Reality can be beaten with enough imagination.

Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a long-handled brush. He surveyed the fence, and all gladness left him and a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit. Thirty yards of board fence nine feet high. Life to him seemed hollow, and existence but a burden.