Twain Quote by Michael S. Reynolds

“It’s not the story-line that makes for good reading…but the storyteller. I believe Mark Twain could have filled out a credit application and made…

— Rob Wood

Twain is my keystone. He reminds me of my people because that's the way they told stories.

— Joe R. Lansdale

“This quote is often falsely attributed to Mark Twain.”

— Randall Munroe

“All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There…

— Hemingway, Ernest

Mark Twain is as big as America. He really is.

— Val Kilmer

“I don’t think I like American inventions [...] I am quite sure I don’t. I read some American novels lately, and they were quite…

— Oscar Wilde

“The men had two favorite modes of speech, wild exaggeration and ludicrous understatement. Ideally, both were delivered deadpan. Time and again, the accounts overflow…

— Edward Dolnick

“I was a born empiricist. I believed that writers were paid to pretend, and where appropriate should make use of the real world, the…

— Ian McEwan

“I can assure you Ernest Hemingway was wrong when he said modern American literature began with Huckleberry Finn. It begins with Moby-Dick, the book…

— E.L. Doctorow

I realize how much [Mark] Twain fabricated things. I like it very much, but it's only half true. And it shows what he was…

— John Gimlette

“Americans have many admirable characteristics, but literary taste is rare among them.”

— Elizabeth Peters

Samuel Clemens isn't Mark Twain. Mark Twain is Mark Twain. He doesn't become the thing until he creates himself.

— Scott McClanahan