Humorists of the 'mere' sort cannot survive. Humor is only a fragrance, a decoration.

You are a coward when you even seem to have backed down from a thing you openly set out to do

There was never a century nor a country that was short of experts who knew the Deity's mind and were willing to reveal it.

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

I would not read the proof of one of my books for any fair & reasonable sum whatever, if I could get out of it. The proof-reading on the P & Pauper cost me the last rags of my religion.

I had longed to be a butterfly, and I was one at last. I attended private parties in sumptuous evening dress, simpered and aired my graces like a born beau, and polkaed and schoisched with a step peculiar to myself - and the kangaroo.

Patriotism is usually the refuge of the scoundrel. He is the man who talks the loudest.