“I once heard a grouty northern invalid say that a coconut tree might be poetical, possibly it was; but it looked like a feather-duster struck by lightning.”

“Their very imagination was dead. When you can say that of a man he has struck bottom... there is no lower deep for him.”

“I once sent a dozen of my friends a telegram saying 'flee at once - all is discovered.' They all left town immediately.”

“The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter. ’tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”

“Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work.”

“The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.”

“I can call back the solemn twilight and mystery of the deep woods, the earthy smells, the faint odors of the wild flowers, the sheen of rain-washed foliage, the rattling clatter of drops when the wind shook the trees, the far-off hammering of wood-peckers and the muffled drumming of wood-pheasants in the remotenesses of the forest, the snap-shot glimpses of disturbed wild creatures skurrying through the grass, — I can call it all back and make it as real as it ever was, and as blessed. I can call back the prairie, and its loneliness and peace, and a vast hawk hanging motionless in the sky, with his wings spread wide and the blue of the vault showing through the fringe of their end-feathers.”