“A book is a mirror: if an ass peers into it you can't expect an apostle to look out.”

“Barbaric accuracy - whimpering humility.”

“Never undertake anything for which you wouldn't have the courage to ask the blessings of heaven.”

“Most men of education are more superstitious than they admit - nay than they think.”

“Everyone is a genius at least once a year a real genius has his original ideas closer together.”

“Sometimes men come by the name of genius in the same way that certain insects come by the name of centipede - not because they have a hundred feet but because most people can't count above fourteen.”

“It's like it ain't so much what a fellow does, but it's the way the majority of folks is looking at him when he does it.”

“The Thing about people who wanted to show you things was that sometimes their interest in granting you knowledge was laced with a little voyeuristic sadism. They were waiting for the Look or the Re...”

“But I remember one thing: it wasn't me that started acting deaf, it was people that first started acting like I was too dumb to hear or see or say anything at all.”