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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
Care
Succeed
Together
Failing
Writing
Fiction
Something
Hell
Test
Good
Trouble
Quickly
Land
Tests
Possible
Fail
Character
Characters
More quotes by Mark Twain
It is wiser to find out than to suppose.
Mark Twain
In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.
Mark Twain
Is not this insanity plea becoming rather common? Is it not so common that the reader confidently expects to see it offered in every criminal case that comes before the courts?... Really, what we want now, is not laws against crime, but a law against insanity.
Mark Twain
There is no such thing as a new idea. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope.
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Frankenstein took some flesh and bones and blood and made a man out of them the man ran away and fell to raping and robbing and murdering everywhere, and Frankenstein was horrified and in despair, and said, I made him, without asking his consent, and it makes me responsible for every crime he commits. I am the criminal, he is innocent.
Mark Twain
Customs do not concern themselves with right or wrong or reason. But they have to be obeyed one reasons all around them until he is tired, but he must not transgress them, it is sternly forbidden.
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It's spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you've got it, you want—oh, you don't quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!
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Heaven is by favor if it were by merit your dog would go in and you would stay out. Of all the creatures ever made (man) is the most detestable. Of the entire brood, he is the only one... that possesses malice. He is the only creature that inflicts pain for sport, knowing it to be pain.
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I could never learn to like her, except on a raft at sea with no other provisions in sight.
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America cannot have an empire abroad and a Republic at home.
Mark Twain
To get the right word in the right place is a rare achievement.
Mark Twain
Most writers regard the truth as their most valuable possession, and therefore are most economical in its use.
Mark Twain
If man could be crossed with the cat, it would improve man but deteriorate the cat.
Mark Twain
One can enjoy a rainbow without necessarily forgetting the forces that made it.
Mark Twain
The gentle reader will never, never know what a consummate ass he can become until he goes abroad.
Mark Twain
Jane Austen's books, too, are absent from this library. Just that one omission alone would make a fairly good library out of a library that hadn't a book in it.
Mark Twain
Everybody lies...every day, every hour, awake, asleep, in his dreams, in his joy, in his mourning. If he keeps his tongue still his hands, his feet, his eyes, his attitude will convey deception.
Mark Twain
Wisdom teaches us that none but birds should go out early, and that not even birds should do it unless they are out of worms.
Mark Twain
Yesterday, everybody smoked his last cigar, took his last drink and swore his last oath. Today, we are a pious and exemplary community. Thirty days from now, we shall have cast our reformation to the winds and gone to cutting our ancient shortcomings considerably shorter than ever.
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When you ascend the hill of prosperity, may you not meet a friend.
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