[Mark Twain] is still the rough, awkward, good-natured boy who swore at the deck hands when he was three years old. Thoroughly likeable as a good fellow, but impossible as a man of letters.

The prayers of all good people are good.

People can be lovers and enemies at the same time, you know.

Henry Colbert, the miller, always breakfasted with his wife--beyond that he appeared irregularly at the family table.

The great fact in life, the always possible escape from dullness, was the lake. The sun rose out of it, the day began there; it was like an open door that nobody could shut. The land and all its dreariness could never close in on you. You had only to look at the lake, and you knew you would soon be free.

Art and religion (they are the same thing, in the end, of course) have given man the only happiness he has ever had.

All the intelligence and talent in the world can't make a singer. The voice is a wild thing. It can't be bred in captivity. It is a sport, like the silver fox. It happens.