More quotes by Mark Twain

"I haven't any right to criticize books, and I don't do it except when I hate them. I often want to criticize Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can't conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Every time I read Pride and Prejudice I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone."
"Lord save us all from old age and broken health and a hope tree that has lost the faculty of putting out blossoms."
"The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time."
"A big leather-bound volume makes an ideal razorstrap. A thing book is useful to stick under a table with a broken caster to steady it. A large, flat atlas can be used to cover a window with a broken pane. And a thick, old-fashioned heavy book with a clasp is the finest thing in the world to throw at a noisy cat."
"What is Man? Man is a noisome bacillus whom Our Heavenly Father created because he was disappointed in the monkey."