Literature is well enough, as a time-passer, and for the improvement and general elevation and purification of mankind, but it has no practical value.

It is sound judgment to put on a bold face and play your hand for a hundred times what it is worth; forty-nine times out of fifty nobody dares to call it, and you roll in the chips.

Some people get an education without going to college. The rest get it after they get out.

When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don't mean utterly, but kill most of them--then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when they are close together. They give strength when they are far apart.

The public is the only critic whose judgment is worth anything at all.

All people have had ill luck, but Jairus's daughter and Lazarus had the worst.

It is strange the way the ignorant and inexperienced so often and so undeservedly succeed when the informed and the experienced fail.