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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 fiction is that you want them all to land in hell, together, as quickly as possible.

Mark Twain

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Mark Twain
Age: 74 †
Born: 1835
Born: November 30
Died: 1910
Died: April 21
Aphorist
Author
Autobiographer
Humorist
Journalist
Novelist
Opinion Journalist
Prosaist
Science Fiction Writer
Teacher
Florida
Missouri
Samuel Langhorne Clemens
Samuel L. Clemens
Samuel Clemens
Possible
Fail
Character
Characters
Care
Succeed
Together
Failing
Writing
Fiction
Something
Hell
Test
Good
Trouble
Quickly
Land
Tests

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So far as I am able to judge, nothing has been left undone, either by man or nature, to make India the most extraordinary country that the sun visits on his rounds. Nothing seems to have been forgotten, nothing overlooked.
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When a library expels a book of mine and leaves an unexpurgated Bible lying around where unprotected youth and age can get hold of it, the deep unconscious irony of it delights me and doesn't anger me.
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Homely truth is unpalatable.
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A good and wholesome thing is a little harmless fun in this world it tones a body up and keeps him human and prevents him from souring.
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Peace by persuasion has a pleasant sound, but I think we should not be able to work it. We should have to tame the human race first, and history seems to show that that cannot be done.
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You can't throw too much style into a miracle.
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It's lovely to live on a raft. We had the sky up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss about whether they was made or only just happened.
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The joy of killing! the joy of seeing killing done - these are traits of the human race at large.
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It is at our mother's knee that we acquire our noblest and truest and highest ideals.
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To be satisfied with what one has that is wealth.
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Public Servant: Persons chosen by the people to distribute the graft.
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One frequently only finds out how really beautiful a really beautiful woman is after considerable acquaintance with her and the rule applies to Niagara Falls, to majestic mountains, and to mosques-especially to mosques.
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Tomorrow night I appear for the first time before a Boston audience - 4000 critics.
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Vote: The only commodity that is peddleable without a license.
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A newspaper is not just for reporting the news as it is, but to make people mad enough to do something about it.
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Honest poverty is a gem that even a king might be proud to call his own - but I wish to sell out
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There is no salvation for us but to adopt Civilization and lift ourselves down to its level.
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There isn't anything you can't stand if you are only born and bred to it.
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We have to keep our God placated with prayer, and even then we are never sure of him-how much higher and finer is the Indian's God...Our illogical God is all-powerful in name, but impotent in fact the Great Spirit is not all-powerful, but does the very best he can for his injun and does it free of charge
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Loyalty is a word which has worked vast harm for it has been made to trick men into being loyal to a thousand iniquities, whereas the true loyalty should have been to themselves - in which case there would have ensured a rebellion, and the throwing off of that deceptive yoke.
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