Humor, to be comprehensible to anybody, must be built upon a foundation with which he is familiar. If he can't see the foundation the superstructure is to him merely a freak -- like the Flatiron building without any visible means of support -- something that ought to be arrested.

An enemy can partly ruin a man, but it takes a good-natured injudicious friend to complete the thing and make it perfect.

There is probably no pleasure equal to the pleasure of climbing a dangerous Alp; but it is a pleasure which is confined strictly to people who can find pleasure in 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.

Most writers regard the truth as their most valuable possession, and therefore are most economical in its use.

I take my only exercise acting as a pallbearer at the funerals of my friends who exercise regularly.

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