It can be argued that the history of the United States is an uninterrupted cavalcade of such transformative moments. Walt was a devotee of the eternal process of becoming, one of the creative American geniuses that continually advanced our art and technology while preserving so much of our past. As usual, with the panoramic view from the riverboat landing, Disneyland gets both the overall patterns and the tiny details of this eternal magic moment just right.

A photograph is a most important document, and there is nothing more damning to go down to posterity than a silly, foolish smile caught and fixed forever.

Mark Twain made black people look like buffoons," [says Michael].Mort doesn't look up. He doesn't know what we're talking about, but that doesn't stop him from joining the conversation. "Michael," says Mort, "Mark Twain made everybody look like buffoons. He was an equal opportunity buffoon maker.

I wrote this book to point out there is no one we can say is crazy. To put a label on anyone would mean we must put a label on everyone. "When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.

...why is my cat a Muse? the cat has the rare grace of never saying a word too much― Mark Twain ...that's why ...

I am drawn to Tom Sawyer Island because a tribute to Mark Twain would not be out of place in a theme park of my own design. Should Vowell World ever get enough investors, I'm going to stick my Tom Sawyer Island in Love and Death in the American Novel Land right between the Jay Gatsby Swimming Pool and Tom Joad's Dust Bowl Lanes, a Depression-themed bowling alley renting artfully worn-out shoes.

If you hold a cat by the tail, you learn things you can't learn any other way.--Mark Twain

We are so identified with who we think we are that it limits how we can be, determines how we live, and conditions how we react. As Mark Twain said, "It's not what we don't know that gets us in trouble, but what we are sure we know.

One day I was handed a few volumes of new literature unlike anything I had ever read before and so captivating as to make me utterly forget my hopeless state. They were the earlier works of Mark Twain and to them might have been due the miraculous recovery which followed. Twenty-five years later, when I met Mr. Clemens and we formed a friendship between us, I told him of the experience and was amazed to see that great man of laughter burst into tears.

But if some of the pieces make you laugh, I will be happy, and if they persuade even one person to try reading Plato who otherwise wouldn't have done so then I will know I have not wasted my time.