A woman springs a sudden reproach upon you which provokes a hot retort, and then she will presently ask you to apologize.

The gentle reader will never, never know what a consummate ass he can become until he goes abroad. I speak now, of course, in the supposition that the gentle reader has not been abroad, and therefore is not already a consummate ass. If the case be otherwise, I beg his pardon and extend to him the cordial hand of fellowship and call him brother.

Part of the secret of a success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.

But the people cannot have wells, and so they take rain-water. Neither can they conveniently have cellars or graves, the town being built upon "made ground"; so they do without both, and few of the living complain, and none of the others.

Adam and Eve had many advantages, but the principal one was that they escaped teething.

I don't believe any of you have ever read Paradise Lost, and you don't want to. That's something that you just want to take on trust. It's a classic ... something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.

All men are ignorant, just on different subjects.