The ordinary chestnut can beget a sickly and reluctant laugh, but it takes a horse chestnut to fetch the gorgeous big horse-laugh.

Happiness ain't a thing in itself - it's only a contrast with something that ain't pleasant.

God rewards gamblers and fools. The crucial thing, when you win, is knowing which you were.

The cigar-box which the European calls a 'lift' needs but to be compared with our elevators to be appreciated. The lift stops to reflect between floors. That is all right in a hearse, but not in elevators. The American elevator acts like a man's patent purge-it works.

I always take Scotch whiskey at night as a preventive of toothache. I have never had the toothache; and what is more, I never intend to have it.

There isn't any way to libel the human race.

When I want to read something nice, I sit down and write it myself.