If animals could speak, the dog would be a blundering outspoken fellow; but the cat would have the rare grace of never saying a word too much.

Truth is more of a stranger than fiction.

I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.

Gold in its native state is but dull, unornamental stuff, and only lowborn metals excite the admiration of the ignorant with an ostentatious glitter. However, like the rest of the world, I still go on underrating men of gold and glorifying men of mica.

After my marriage she edited everything I wrote. And what is more, she not only edited my works, she edited me.

Comedy keeps the heart sweet; but we all know that there is wholesome refreshment for both mind and heart in an occasional climb among the pomps of the intellectual snow-summits built by Shakespeare and those others.

I thought tamarinds were made to eat, but that was probably not the idea. I ate several, and it seemed to me that they were rather sour that year. They pursed up my lips, till they resembled the stem-end of a tomato, and I had to take my sustenance through a quill for twenty-four hours. They sharpened my teeth till I could have shaved with them, and gave them a 'wire edge' that I was afraid would stay; but a citizen said 'no, it will come off when the enamel does' - which was comforting, at any rate. I found, afterward, that only strangers eat tamarinds - but they only eat them once.