Because in my nature I have always run to pie, whilst in his nature he has always run to mystery.

Work! work! and God will work with us!

The first most important day of you life is the day you were born. The second is when you discover why.

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.

It's the same here as it is on earth—you've got to earn a thing, square and honest, before you enjoy it.  You can't enjoy first and earn afterwards.  But there's this difference, here: you can choose your own occupation, and all the powers of heaven will be put forth to help you make a success of it, if you do your level best.  The shoe-maker on earth that had the soul of a poet in him won't have to make shoes here.

Outside influences, outside circumstances, wind the MAN and regulate him. Left to himself, he wouldn't get regulated at all, and the sort of time he would keep would not be valuable. Some rare men are wonderful watches, with gold case, compensation balance, and all those things, and some men are only simple and sweet and humble Waterburys. I am a Waterbury.

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.

The two most important days in your life are the day you are born an the day you find out why.

It will be best to start right and not let the record get confused, for some instinct tells me that these details are going to be important to the historian some day. For I feel like an experiment, I feel exactly like an experiment; it would be impossible for a person to feel more like an experiment than I do, and so I am coming to feel convinced that that is what I AM—an experiment; just an experiment, and nothing more.

Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered—either by themselves or by others.

To live a fulfilled life, we need to keep creating the 'what is next' of our lives. Without dreams and goals, there is no living, only merely existing, and that is not why we are here.

God Almighty made us all, and some He gives eyes that's blind, and some He gives eyes that can see, and I reckon it ain't none of our lookout what He done it for; it's all right, or He'd 'a' fixed it some other way.