The test of any good fiction is that you should care something for the characters; the good to succeed, the bad to fail. The trouble with most fictio… - Mark Twain

I wish Europe would let Russia annihilate Turkey a little--not much, but enough to make it difficult to find the place again without a divining-rod or a diving-bell.

The kingly office is entitled to no respect; it was originally procured by the highwayman’s methods; it remains a perpetuated crime, can never be anything but the symbol of a crime. It is not more entitled to respect than is the flag of a pirate. A monarch, (whether good or bad), when good, is entitled to the consideration which we accord to a pirate who keeps Sunday school between crimes; when bad, (or a nullity) he is entleed [sic] to none at all.

What a wee little part of a person's life are his acts and his words! His real life is led in his head, and is known to none but himself. All day long, the mill of his brain is grinding, and his thoughts, not those of other things, are his history. These are his life, and they are not written. Everyday would make a whole book of 80,000 words — 365 books a year. Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man — the biography of the man himself cannot be written.