"An author values a compliment even when..." - Quote by Mark Twain

“Life becomes fully understandable only the moment we realise that we are all mad.”

“I think the Cincinnati Enquirer must be edited by children.”

“Schoolboy days are no happier than the days of afterlife, but we look back upon them regretfully because we have forgotten our punishments at school and how we grieved when our marbles were lost and our kites destroyed – because we have forgotten all the sorrows and privations of the canonized ethic and remember only its orchard robberies, its wooden-sword pageants, and its fishing holidays.”

“To write weekly, to write daily, to write shortly, to write for busy people catching trains in the morning or for tired people coming home in the evening, is a heartbreaking task for men who know good writing from bad. They do it, but instinctively draw out of harm's way anything precious that might be damaged by contact with the public, or anything sharp that might irritate its skin.”

“I was with book, as a woman is with child.”

“I am never much interested in the effects of what I write....I seldom read with any attention the reviews of my...books. Two times out of three I know something about the reviewer, and in very few cases have I any respect for his judgments. Thus his praise, if he praises me, leaves me unmoved. I can't recall any review that has even influenced me in the slightest. I live in sort of a vacuum, and I suspect that most other writers do, too. It is hard to imagine one of the great ones paying any serious attention to contemporary opinion.”

“I don't like myself, I'm crazy about myself.”

“To refuse awards is another way of accepting them with more noise than is normal.”

“[My ideal of a good dinner] is to discuss good food, and, after this good food has been discussed, to discuss a good topic - with myself the chief conversationalist.”