Quote

Surely the test of a novel's characters is that you feel a strong interest in them and their affairs the good to be successful, the bad to suffer failure. Well, in John Ward, you feel no divided interest, no discriminating interest you want them all to land in hell together, and right away.

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
Wells
Land
Affair
Well
Successful
Suffer
Right
Suffering
John
Discriminating
Feel
Interest
Tests
Ward
Feels
Strong
Characters
Affairs
Good
Away
Failure
Divided
Character
Novel
Surely
Together
Hell
Test

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If God had meant for us to be naked, we'd have been born that way.
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I have been cautioned to talk but be careful not to say anything. I do not consider this a difficult task.
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Germany, the diseased world's bathhouse.
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Tea is an affront to lunch and an insult to dinner.
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Therein lies the defect of revenge: it's all in the anticipation the thing itself is a pain, not a pleasure at least the pain is the biggest end of it.
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I've dealt with many crises in my life, but few will ever happen.
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No one is willing to acknowledge a fault in himself when a more agreeable motive can be found for the estrangement of his acquaintances.
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Who is this Renaissance? Where did he come from? Who gave him permission to cram the Republic with his execrable daubs?
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It was enough to make a body ashamed of the human race.
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Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.
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A sense of humor is the one thing no one will admit to not having.
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Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.
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The world has corrected the Bible. The church never corrects it and also never fails to drop in at the tail of the procession-and take the credit of the correction.
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I am always reading immoral books on the sly, and then selfishly trying to prevent other people from having the same wicked good time.
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The choir always tittered and whispered all through the service. There was once a church choir that was not ill-bred, but I have forgotten where it was.
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I wrote 'Tom Sawyer' and 'Huck Finn' for adults exclusively, and it always distressed me when I find that boys and girls have been allowed access to them. The mind that becomes soiled in youth can never again be washed clean.
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A habit cannot be tossed out the window it must be coaxed down the stairs a step at a time.
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Honor is a harder master than the law.
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But it was ever thus, all through my life: whenever I have diverged from custom and principle and uttered a truth, the rule has been that the hearer hadn't strength of mind enough to believe it.
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Every civilization carries the seeds of its own destruction, and the same cycle shows in them all. The Republic is born, flourishes, decays into plutocracy, and is captured by the shoemaker whom the mercenaries and millionaires make into a king. The people invent their oppressors, and the oppressors serve the function for which they are invented.
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