"The exercise of an extraordinary gift is..." - Quote by Mark Twain

“That is the way we are made: we don't reason, where we feel; we just feel.”

“Never let formal education get in the way of your learning.”

“The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that procession but carrying a banner.”

“By the time I was 12 or 13, I felt that I was special, because I could play the guitar and write songs.”

“It is this delightful habit of journalizing which largely contributes to form the easy style of writing for which ladies are so generally celebrated. Every body allows that the talent of writing is particularly female. Nature might have done something, but I am sure it must be essentially assisted by the practice of keeping a journal.”

“Talent is able to achieve what is beyond other people's capacity to achieve, yet not what is beyond their capacity of apprehension; therefore it at once finds its appreciators. The achievement of genius, on the other hand, transcends not only others' capacity of achievement, but also their capacity of apprehension; therefore they do not become immediately aware of it. Talent is like the marksman who hits a target which others cannot reach; genius is like the marksman who hits a target, as far as which others cannot even see.”

“I tremble with pleasure when I think that on the very day of my leaving prison both the laburnum and the lilac will be blooming in the gardens, and that I shall see the wind stir into restless beauty the swaying gold of the one, and make the other toss the pale purple of its plumes, so that all the air shall be Arabia for me.”

“Pleasure, so called, is the murderer of serious thought. This is the age of excessive amusement. Everybody craves for it, like a babe for its rattle!”

“Gaiety alone, as it were, is the hard cash of happiness; everything else is just a promissory note.”