It is our nature to conform; it is a force which not many can successfully resist. What is its seat? The inborn requirement of self-approval.

I've lived through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.

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

There is nothing but that frail breastwork of earth between the people and destruction.

The lightning there is peculiar; it is so convincing, that when it strikes a thing it doesn't leave enough of that thing behind for you to tell whether-Well, you'd think it was something valuable, and a Congressman had been there.

The true and lasting genius of humour does not drag you thus to boxes labelled 'pathos,' 'humour,' and show you all the mechanism of the inimitable puppets that are going to perform. How I used to laugh at Simon Tapperwit, and the Wellers, and a host more! But I can't do it now somehow; and time, it seems to me, is the true test of humour. It must be antiseptic.

No one can tell me what is a good cigar - for me. I am the only judge. People who claim to know say that I smoke the worst cigars in the world. They bring their own cigars when they come to my house.