Heroine: girl who is perfectly charming to live with, in a book. - Mark Twain

It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.

. . . man never does a single thing which has any first and foremost object except one—to secure peace of mind, spiritual comfort, for himself.

To string incongruities and absurdities together in a wandering and sometimes purposeless way, and seem innocently unaware that they are absurdities, is the basis of the American art, if my position is correct.