In Boston they ask, how much does he know? In New York, how much is he worth? In Philadelphia, who were his parents?

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

When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.

Damn these human beings; if I had invented them I would go hide my head in a bag.

Cherimoya, the most delicious fruit known to men.

I conceive that the right way to write a story for boys is to write so that it will not only interest boys but strongly interest any man who has ever been a boy. That immensely enlarges the audience.

To get the right word in the right place is a rare achievement. To condense the diffused light of a page of thought into the luminous flash of a single sentence, is worthy to rank as a prize composition just by itself...Anybody can have ideas--the difficulty is to express them without squandering a quire of paper on an idea that ought to be reduced to one glittering paragraph.