To be satisfied with what one has; that is wealth. As long as one sorely needs a certain additional amount, that man isn't rich.

There ain't nothing more to write about and I'm rotten glad of it, because if I'd know'd what trouble it was to make a book, I wouldn't a tackled it.

It is no use to keep private information which you can't show off.

The test of any good fiction is that you should care something for the characters; the good to succeed, the bad to fail. The trouble with most fiction is that you want them all to land in hell, together, as quickly as possible.

The Mississippi River towns are comely, clean, well built, and pleasing to the eye, and cheering to the spirit. The Mississippi Valley is as reposeful as a dreamland, nothing worldly about it . . . nothing to hang a fret or a worry upon.

The minute we get reconciled to a person, how willing we are to throw aside little needless punctilios and pronounce his name right.

Against a diseased imagination demonstration goes for nothing.