Quotes from Mark Twain

I never smoke to excess - that is, I smoke in moderation, only one cigar at a time.

I have been complimented many times and they always embarrass me; I always feel that they have not said enough.

In 'Huckleberry Finn,' I have drawn Tom Blankenship exactly as he was. He was ignorant, unwashed, insufficiently fed; but he had as good a heart as ever any boy had.

If I'd seen a playwright ever write an' play at the same time, I'd have given 'em more of a chance at cards. Can I get an 'amen?'

It takes some little time to accept and realize the fact that while you have been growing old, your friends have not been standing still, in that matter.

Geological time is not money.

Time spent with your children is time wisely spent.

But it warn't no time to be sentimentering.

Sometimes you gwyne to git hurt, en sometimes you gwyne to git sick; but every time you's gwyne to git well agin.

It is not what a man knows, but what he thinks of in time.

Truth is neither alive nor dead; it just aggravates itself all the time.

Your actions speak so much louder than words.

Not a single right is indestructible: a new might can at any time abolish it, hence, man possesses not a single permanent right. God is Might (and He is shifty, malicious, and uncertain).

I am admonished in many ways that time is pushing me inexorably along. I am approaching the threshold of age; in 1977 I shall be 142.

Perhaps no poet is a conscious plagiarist, but there seems to be warrant for suspecting that there is no poet who is not at one time or another an unconscious one.

I am always reading immoral books on the sly, and then selfishly trying to prevent other people from having the same wicked good time.

How slow and still the time did drag along.

Old habits cannot be thrown out the upstairs window. They have to be coaxed downstairs one step at a time.

We called him Barney for short. We couldn't use his real name, there wasn't time.

The lie, as a virtue, a principle, is eternal; the lie, as a recreation, a solace, a refuge in time of need, the fourth Grace, the tenth Muse, man's best and surest friend is immortal

You need not expect to get your book right the first time.

It has taken a weary long time to persuade American Presbyterians to give up infant damnation and try to bear it the best they can.

Golden rule: Made of hard metal so it could stand severe wear, it not being known at that time that butter would answer.

Every time I reform in one direction I go overboard in another.