The quotations of

Mark Twain

American author and humorist

1835–1910

151 quotes, most often on Comedy, Truth & Lies and Morality. Part of the Writers collection.

I don’t give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.
- Writing
There are laws to protect the freedom of the press’s speech, but none that are worth anything to protect the people from the press.
License of the Press (1873).
- Journalism
- Writing
Most writers regard truth as their most valuable possession, and therefore are most economical in its use.
Said to portrait painter Samuel Johnson Woolf, cited in Here am I (1941), Samuel Johnson Woolf
- Truth & Lies
- Writing
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.
Letter to George Bainton, 15 October 1888, solicited for and printed in George Bainton, The Art of Authorship: Literary Reminiscences, Methods of Work, and Advice to Young Beginners (1890), pp. 87–88.
- Writing
Biographies are but clothes and buttons of the man — the biography of the man himself cannot be written.
Mark Twain’s Autobiography (1924), Vol. I, p. 2
- Writing
Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), NoticeIn context
- Comedy
- Writing
You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain’t no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), Chapter IIn context
- Truth & Lies
- Writing
When one writes a novel about grown people, he knows exactly where to stop⁠—that is, with a marriage; but when he writes of juveniles, he must stop where he best can.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), ConclusionIn context
- Marriage
- Writing

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