We Americans are the most lavish and showiest and most luxury loving people on the earth; and at our masthead we fly one true and honest symbol, the gaudiest flag the world has ever seen.
I would not read the proof of one of my books for any fair & reasonable sum whatever, if I could get out of it. The proof-reading on the P & Pauper cost me the last rags of my religion.
Even popularity can be overdone. In Rome, along at first, you are full of regrets that Michelangelo died; but by and by, you only regret that you didn't see him do it.
I never could do anything with figures, never had any talent for mathematics, never accomplished anything in my efforts at that rugged study, and to-day the only mathematics I know is multiplication, and the minute I get away up in that, as soon as I reach nine times seven- [He lapsed into deep thought, trying to figure nine times seven. Mr. McKelway whispered the answer to him.] I've got it now. It's eighty-four. Well, I can get that far all right with a little hesitation. After that I am uncertain, and I can't manage a statistic.