By his father he is English, by his mother he is Americanto my mind the blend which makes the perfect man.

I speak French with timidity, and not flowingly--except when excited. When using that language I have often noticed that I have hardly ever been mistaken for a Frenchman, except, perhaps, by horses; never, I believe, by people.

They did not know it was impossible so they did it

One must travel, to learn. Every day, now, old Scriptural phrases that never possessed any significance for me before, take to themselves a meaning.

We take a natural interest in novelties, but it is against nature to take an interest in familiar things.

Go and surprise the whole country by doing something right.

Geniuses are people who dash off weird, wild, incomprehensible poems with astonishing facility, & then go & get booming drunk & sleep in the gutter. Genius elevates a man to ineffable speres [sic] far above the vulgar world, & fills his soul with a regal contempt for the gross & sordid things of earth. It is probably on account of this that people who have genius do not pay their board, as a general thing.