Pudd'nhead Wilson and Other Tales Quotes

“April 1. This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four.”
― Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson and Other Tales

“A man who is not born with the novel-writing gift has a troublesome time of it when he tries to build a novel. I know this from experience. He has no clear idea of his story; in fact he has no story. He merely has some people in his mind, and an incident or two, also a locality, and he trusts he can plunge those people into those incidents with interesting results. So he goes to work. To write a novel? No--that is a thought which comes later; in the beginning he is only proposing to tell a little tale, a very little tale, a six-page tale. But as it is a tale which he is not acquainted with, and can only find out what it is by listening as it goes along telling itself, it is more than apt to go on and on and on till it spreads itself into a book. I know about this, because it has happened to me so many times.”
― Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson and Other Tales

“The very ink with which all history is written is merely fluid prejudice.”
― Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson and Other Tales

“Wilson stopped and stood silent. Inattention dies a quick and sure death when a speaker does that.”
― Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson and Other Tales