When angry, count four; when very angry, swear. ~ The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson by Mark Twain
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Trust Mark Twain to say what everyone else is thinking.
Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example. ~ The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson by Mark Twain
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1 – Mark Twain, whose real name was Samuel Langhorne Clemens, was born on November 30th 1835. He died on April 21st, 1910.
2 – For a time he worked as a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River. He also worked as a newspaper journalist and a miner before he turned to writing fiction.
3 – While he was well paid as a writer, he was plagued with financial problems. One of his biggest problems was bad investments. He lost a lot of money with his investment in Paige Compositor, a mechanical typesetter. Twain eventually declared bankruptcy. However later he paid back all of his creditors.
4 – He married Olivia Landon in 1870. They remained together until her death in 1904. They had four children.
5 – Twain was born shortly after a visit by Halley’s Comet. He told people that he would “go out with it” as well. Here’s a quote from Twain in 1909.
I came in with Halley’s Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don’t go out with Halley’s Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: ‘Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together’.
Twain predicted correctly. He died the day after the comet’s return.
The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
The Prince and the Pauper
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
The American Claimant
The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson
Tom Sawyer Abroad
Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc
Tom Sawyer, Detective
The Mysterious Stranger (published posthumously)
Check out the Kindle version of Mark Twain: A Life
In Mark Twain, Ron Powers consummates years of thought and research with a tour de force on the life of our culture’s founding father, re-creating the 19th century’s vital landscapes and tumultuous events while restoring the human being at their center. He offers Sam Clemens as he lived, breathed, and wrote — drawing heavily on the preserved viewpoints of the people who knew him best (especially the great William Dean Howells, his most admiring friend and literary co-conspirator), and on the annals of the American 19th century that he helped shape. Powers’s prose rivals Mark Twain’s own in its blend of humor, telling detail, and flights of lyricism. With the assistance of the Mark Twain Project at Berkeley, he has been able to draw on thousands of letters and notebook entries, many only recently discovered.
Nothing so needs reforming as other people’s habits. ~ The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson by Mark Twain
Now he found out a new thing–namely, that to promise not to do a thing is the surest way in the world to make a body want to go and do that very thing. ~ The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
Old habit of mind is one of the toughest things to get away from in the world. It transmits itself like physical form and feature. ~ A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain
Classic literature can be inspirational. It can be poetic. It can be educational. Classic literature can also be really funny! Check out these ten funny quotes from literature:
1 – “How dreadful!” cried Lord Henry. “I can stand brute force, but brute reason is quite unbearable. There is something unfair about its use. It is hitting below the intellect.” ~ The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
2 – “If you could see my legs when I take my boots off, you’d form some idea of what unrequited affection is.” ~ Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens
3 – Indeed, he would sometimes remark, when a man fell into his anecdotage, it was a sign for him to retire from the world. ~ Lothair by Benjamin Disraeli
4 – You cannot make a man by standing a sheep on its hind-legs. But by standing a flock of sheep in that position you can make a crowd of men. ~ Zuleika Dobson by Sir Max Beerbohm
5 – The bishop did not whistle: we believe that they lose the power of doing so on being consecrated. ~ The Warden by Anthony Trollope
6 – A story with a moral appended is like the bill of a mosquito. It bores you, and then injects a stinging drop to irritate your conscience. ~ Strictly Business by O. Henry
7 – From politics, it was an easy step to silence. ~ Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
8 – Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example. ~ The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson by Mark Twain
9 – It is not that I object to the work, mind you; I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours. ~ Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome
10 – I don’t want to repeat my innocence. I want the pleasure of losing it again. ~ This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
If you enjoyed these quotes check out our humorous quotes page or our random funny quote feature.
