The man who isn't a pessimist is a damned fool.

This is the year 1492. I am eighty-two years of age. The things I am going to tell you are things which I saw myself as a child and as a youth.

We consider that any man who can fiddle all through one of those Virginia Reels without losing his grip may be depended upon in any kind of musical emergency.

Conscience, man's moral medicine chest.

A great, great deal has been said about the weather, but very little has ever been done.

Whenever a copyright law is to be made or altered, then the idiots assemble.

To me [Edgar Allen Poe's] prose is unreadable—like Jane Austin's [sic]. No there is a difference. I could read his prose on salary, but not Jane's. Jane is entirely impossible. It seems a great pity that they allowed her to die a natural death.