"Biographies are but clothes and buttons of the man — the biography of the man himself cannot be written."

"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. I consider them unwise and I know they are dangerous. Also, sinful. If a man should…"

"Of all the creatures that were made he [man] is the most detestable. Of the entire brood he is the only one — the sol…"

"The trade of critic, in literature, music, and the drama, is the most degraded of all trades."

"There are people who strictly deprive themselves of each and every eatable, drinkable and smokable which has in any w…"

"Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered — either by themselves or by others. But for the Civil War, Lincoln a…"

"...when you recollect something which belonged in an earlier chapter, do not go back, but jam it in where you are. Di…"

"You cannot lay bare your private soul and look at it. You are too much ashamed of yourself. It is too disgusting. For…"

"...an Autobiography is the truest of all books; for while it inevitably consists mainly of extinctions of the truth, …"

"The only reason why God created man is because he was disappointed with the monkey."