I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead. — Mark Twain Copy Share Image
You thunder and lightning too much; the reader ceases to get under the bed, by and by. — Mark Twain Copy Share Image
An author values a compliment even when it comes from a source of doubtful competency. — Mark Twain Copy Share Image
I never write "metropolis" for seven cents when I can write "city" and get paid the same. — Mark Twain Copy Share Image
I can't do no literary work for the rest of this year because I'm meditating another lawsuit and looking around for a… — Mark Twain Copy Share Image
In writing, I shall always confine myself strictly to the truth, except when it is attended with inconvenience. — Mark Twain Copy Share Image
Most writers regard the truth as their most valuable possession, and therefore are economical in its use. — Mark Twain Copy Share Image
“T[he rules of writing] require that the episodes in a tale shall be necessary parts of the tale, and shall help to… — Mark Twain Copy Share Image
“To me [Edgar Allan Poe's] prose is unreadable—like Jane Austin's [sic]. No there is a difference. I could read his prose on… — Mark Twain Copy Share Image
“When one writes a novel about grown people, he knows exactly where to stop - that is, with a marriage; but when… — Mark Twain Copy Share Image
Let us guess that whenever we read a sentence & like it, we unconsciously store it away in our model-chamber; & it… — Mark Twain Copy Share Image
Whatever you have lived, you can write & by hard work & a genuine apprenticeship, you can learn to write well; but… — Mark Twain Copy Share Image
Every man feels that his experience is unlike that of anybody else and therefore he should write it down-- he finds also… — Mark Twain Copy Share Image
Experience is an author's most valuable asset; experience is the thing that puts the muscle and the breath and the warm blood… — Mark Twain Copy Share Image
Well, my book is written-let it go. But if it were only to write over again there wouldn't be so many things… — Mark Twain Copy Share Image
Anybody can have ideas-the difficulty is to express them without squandering a quire of paper on an idea that ought to be… — Mark Twain Copy Share Image
I haven't any right to criticize books, and I don't do it except when I hate them. I often want to criticize… — Mark Twain Copy Share Image
To get the right word in the right place is a rare achievement. To condense the diffused light of a page of… — Mark Twain Copy Share Image
I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English―it is the… — Mark Twain Copy Share Image
There are some books that refuse to be written. They stand their ground year after year and will not be persuaded. It… — Mark Twain Copy Share Image
What a lumbering poor vehicle prose is for the conveying of a great thought! ... Prose wanders around with a lantern &… — Mark Twain Copy Share Image
“My books are water; those of the great geniuses is wine. Everybody drinks water.” — Mark Twain Copy Share Image
A successful book is not made of what is in it, but what is left out of it. — Mark Twain Copy Share Image
In Austria an editor who can write well is valuable, but he is not likely to remain so unless he can handle… — Mark Twain Copy Share Image
“The dream vocabulary shaves meanings finer and closer than do the world's daytime dictionaries.” — Mark Twain Copy Share Image
No one can write perfect English and keep it up through a stretch of ten chapters. It has never been done. — Mark Twain Copy Share Image
One should never use exclamation points in writing. It is like laughing at your own joke. — Mark Twain Copy Share Image
God only exhibits his thunder and lightning at intervals, and so they always command attention. — Mark Twain Copy Share Image
“My works are like water. The works of the great masters are like wine. But everyone drinks water. - From Mark Twain's… — Mark Twain Copy Share Image
Writing is the easiest thing in the world… Just try it sometime. I sit up with a pipe in my mouth and… — Mark Twain Copy Share Image
Don't look at the world with your hands in your pockets. To write about it you have to reach out and touch… — Mark Twain Copy Share Image
Men write many fine and plausible arguments in support of monarchy, but the fact remains that where every man has a voice,… — Mark Twain Copy Share Image
“T[he rules of writing] require that the personages in a tale shall be alive, except in the case of corpses, and that… — Mark Twain Copy Share Image
It is a good thing to write for the amusement of the public, but it is a far higher and nobler thing… — Mark Twain Copy Share Image
Perhaps no poet is a conscious plagiarist, but there seems to be warrant for suspecting that there is no poet who is… — Mark Twain Copy Share Image
I conceive that the right way to write a story for boys is to write so that it will not only interest… — Mark Twain Copy Share Image
To string incongruities and absurdities together in a wandering and sometimes purposeless way, and seem innocently unaware that they are absurdities, is… — Mark Twain Copy Share Image
When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don't mean utterly, but kill most of them--then the rest will be valuable.… — Mark Twain Copy Share Image
Sing like no one's listening, love like you've never been hurt, dance like nobody's watching, and live like its heaven on earth. — Mark Twain Copy Share Image
If you had made the acquiring of ignorance the study of your life, you could not have graduated with higher honor than you could… — Mark Twain Copy Share Image
“The Creator sat upon the throne, thinking. Behind him stretched the illimitable continent of heaven, steeped in a glory of light and color; before… — Mark Twain Copy Share Image
A man accustomed to American food and American domestic cookery would not starve to death suddenly in Europe, but I think he would gradually… — Mark Twain Copy Share Image
I never write Metropolis for seven cents because I can get the same price for city. I never write policeman because I can get… — Mark Twain Copy Share Image
The higher animals get their teeth without pain or inconvenience. Man gets his through months and months of cruel torture; he will never get… — Mark Twain Copy Share Image
“As far as I can see, Italy, for fifteen hundred years, has turned all her energies, all her finances, and all her industry to… — Mark Twain Copy Share Image
Begin with the determination to succeed and the work is half done already. — Mark Twain Copy Share Image
Many public-school children seem to know only two dates—1492 and 4th of July; and as a rule they don't know what happened on either… — Mark Twain Copy Share Image
If we could imagine such a man, that is a man who could invent the fly and send him out on his mission and… — Mark Twain Copy Share Image
You perceive, now, that these things are all impossible except in a dream. You perceive that they are pure and puerile insanities, the silly… — Mark Twain Copy Share Image
Lord save us all from a hope tree that has lost the faculty of putting out blossoms. — Mark Twain Copy Share Image
![“T[he rules of writing] require that the episodes in a tale shall be necessary parts of the tale, and shall help to develop it.” quote by Mark Twain](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/7e1/mark-twain-22_plot_t-he-rules-of-writing-require-that-the-e_2085504.jpg)
![“To me [Edgar Allan Poe's] prose is unreadable—like Jane Austin's [sic]. No there is a difference. I could read his prose on salary, but not Jane's. Jane is entirely impossible. It seems a great pity that they allowed her to die a natural death.” quote by Mark Twain](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/370/mark-twain-22_allan-poe_to-me-edgar-allan-poe-s-prose-is-unreada_175729.jpg)
![“T[he rules of writing] require that the personages in a tale shall be alive, except in the case of corpses, and that always the reader shall be able to tell the corpses from the others.” quote by Mark Twain](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/be6/mark-twain-22_books_t-he-rules-of-writing-require-that-the-p_2169332.jpg)
