Who are these people who think a book comes with a guarantee that they will like it? - Gabrielle Zevin

You would think women would want to stick together when there weren't that many of them, but they never did. It was as if being a woman was a disease that you didn't wish to catch. As long as you didn't associate with the other women, you could imply to the majority, the men: I'm not like those other ones.

If something is good and universally acknowledged to be so, this is not reason enough to dislike it.

In reading Twain, I often suspect he is having more fun than I am.