"Other countries may boast of this and that, but nobody can touch the United States for poisonous snakes. We have about twenty species, most of them deadly, and Europe has only five or six, none of them much good. We have fifteen kinds of Rattlesnakes alone and nobody else has even one. [Footnote: There is a species in Central and South America, but it probably came from here.]"

"[Footnote:] We have no Common Vipers in the United States, but we have worse."

"As Darwin puts it in The Descent of Man, "Male snakes, though appearing so sluggish, are amorous." Isn't that just like Darwin? It was one of his main ideas, you know, that the males of almost all animals have stronger passions than the females. Since then we've learned a thing or two. At any rate, the female snake is right there when spring arrives in the woods."

"[Footnote:] The head of a Pike, served at supper, is said to have caused the death from terror of Theodoric the Goth, who imagined the fish's features to be those of Symmachus, a man he had just killed. But for this story, we of today would have no idea what Symmachus looked like."

"[Footnote:] The female of any species is generally regarded as a relatively anabolic organism, more passive than the male, who is relatively katabolic and active. The fact remains that one frequently runs across a rather katabolic female."

"Even as a child back in Indiana, whenever I took a Butterbelly off the hook I used to ask myself, "Does this fish think?" I would even ask others, "Do you suppose this Butterbelly can think?" And all I would get in reply was a look. At the age of eighteen, I left the state."

"The father guards the nest and fans it with his pectoral fins until the children are able to shift for themselves. Then he eats them. [Footnote: He does this because of his altruistic (parental) instinct. The higher one rises in the vertebrate scale the more altruistic one becomes. The higher vertebrates are just one mass of altruism.]"

"The Zebra is striped all over so that the Lion can see him and eat him. Some people say he is striped so that the Lion can not see him. These people believe that the stripes of the Zebra simulate the bars of sunlight falling through the tall jungle grasses and that therefore the Zebra is invisible and that the earth is flat."

"[Footnote:] Pliny the Elder described a Whale called "Balaena or Whirlpool, which is so long and broad as to take up more in length and breadth than two acres of ground." This brings up again the old question: Are the classics doomed? Our ancestors believed that four years of this sort of information would inevitably produce a President, or at least a Cabinet Member. It didn't seem to work out that way."

"[Footnote:] To give the Beaver his due, he does things because he has to do them, not because he believes that hard work per se will somehow make him a better Beaver -- the Beaver may be dumb, but he is not that dumb! The Beaver was made to gnaw, and gnaw he does. There you have him in a nutshell."

"[Footnote:] Aristotle maintains that the neck of the Lion is composed of a single bone. Aristotle knew nothing at all about Lions, a circumstance which did not prevent him from writing a good deal on the subject."

"[Footnote:] Much still remains to be learned about his sex life because the Hummingbird is quicker than the eye."

"The male is colored much more gorgeously than the female so that he can be shot and made into feather embroidery."

"To the seeing eye life is mostly Sparrows."

"[Footnote:] Other foolish birds include the Semipalmated Plover, the Marbled Godwit, the Carolina Mosshead, the Tasmanian Googlenose and the Fool Hen or Franklin Grouse of the Rockies."

"[Footnote:] The Dotterel weighs only four ounces. It has long been a scientific riddle how so much wrong-headedness can manage to exist in so small a space. Still, there's the Least Gnatcatcher."

"Male penguins are unfaithful up to an advanced age, a phenomenon sometimes attributed to the sea air."

"Aristotle described the Crow as chaste. In some departments of knowledge, Aristotle was too innocent for his own good."

"All Modern Men are descended from a Wormlike creature but it shows more on some people."

"[Footnote:]Each male has from 2 to 790 females with whom he discusses current events. Of these he marries from 3 to 17."

"The Modern Man or Nervous Wreck is the highest of all mammals because anyone can see that he is. There are about 2,000,000,000 Modern Men, or too many. The Modern Man's highly developed brain has made him what he is and you know what he is. [Footnote: It is because of his brain that he has risen above the animals. Guess which animals he has risen above.]"

"Ah, well! We live and learn, or, anyway, we live."

"I only know that all is lost, and that nothing can help me unless I inherit money, strike oil or go to work."

"I am billed as a humorist, but of course I am a tragedian at heart."

"I hear so many things about who I am supposed to be I hardly know what to believe. I am willing to tell all, but what Is it? Doubtless all these myths and legends will be straightened out eventually, but It may take years."

"I think you are absolutely right about everything, except I think humor springs from rage, hay fever, overdue rent and miscellaneous hell."

"Borrowing has a bad name, but you would be surprised how it helps in a pinch."

"I borrow to pay my honest debts and not to squander foolishly. What's more, I confine my borrowing to those who can well afford it. I don't go around sponging on widows and orphans unless they have plenty."

"He was probably the most diligent fact excavator since Gibbon; what he didn't know about a subject, once he had decided to spoof it, wasn't worth knowing."

"Chapter Four: A Huck So Unlike Finn: July 26, 2015"

"How do you know if your child is a writer? Your obstetrician holds his stethoscope to your abdomen and only hears excuses."

"I understand, of course, that many people find smoking objectionable. That is their right. I would, I assure you, be the very last to criticize the annoyed. I myself find many-- even most-- things objectionable. Being offended is the natural consequence of leaving one's home. I do not like aftershave lotion, adults who roller-skate, children who speak French, or anyone who is unduly tan. I do not, however, go around enacting legislation and putting up signs. In private I avoid such people; in public they have the run of the place. I stay at home as much as possible, and so should they. When it is necessary, however, to go out of the house, they must be prepared, as I am, to deal with the unpleasant personal habits of others. That is what "public" means."

"Think before you speak. Read before you think. This will give you something to think about that you didn't make up yourself - a wise move at any age, but most especially at seventeen, when you are in the greatest danger of coming to annoying conclusions."

"Stand firm in your refusal to remain conscious during algebra. In real life, I assure you, there is no such thing as algebra."

"Should you be a teenager blessed with uncommon good looks, document this state of affairs by the taking of photographs. It is the only way anyone will ever believe you in years to come."

"Remember that as a teenager you are in the last stage of your life when you will be happy to hear the phone is for you."

"No animal should ever jump up on the dining room furniture unless absolutely certain that he can hold his own in the conversation."

"Do not allow children to mix drinks. It is unseemly and they use too much vermouth."

"Educational television should be absolutely forbidden. It can only lead to unreasonable expectations and eventual disappointment when your child discovers that the letters of the alphabet do not leap up out of books and dance around the room with royal-blue chickens."

"Ask your child what he wants for dinner only if he's buying."

"Children do not really need money. After all, they don't have to pay rent or send mailgrams."

"Do not elicit your child's political opinions. He doesn't know any more than you do."

"The opposite of talking isn't listening. The opposite of talking is waiting."

"The conversational overachiever is someone whose grasp exceeds his reach. This is possible but not attractive."

"Original thought is like original sin: both happened before you were born to people you could not have possibly met."

"Radio news is bearable. This is due to the fact that while the news is being broadcast the disc jockey is not allowed to talk."

"Being a woman is of special interest only to aspiring male transsexuals. To actual women it is simply a good excuse not to play football."

"If your sexual fantasies were truly of interest to others, they would no longer be fantasies."

"Having been unpopular in high school is not just cause for book publication."

"Women who insist on having the same options as men would do well to consider the option of being the strong, silent type."