On photography: The photograph has this advantage: it lets nature have its way; the botheration with the painters is that . . . they want to make nature let them have their way.
On preaching: We might as well think of curing people of the measles, the smallpox, whatnot, by mere sermonizings, yawpings, as of saving their souls by such tactics. . . . No amount of formal, salaried petitioning of God will serve to work out the result aimed for.
On politics: No man can look into what we call party politics without seeing what a mockery it all is—how little either Democrats or Republicans know about essential truths.
On girlfriends: A boy can do a lot sight worse than have a girl—he may not have a girl—that’s a lot sight worse.
On writing: I believe if I met a man who had not written a book I should hug him—he would be a monumental exception—an honorable exception.
On Sundays: I believe in all that—in baseball, in picnics, in freedom: I believe in the jolly all-round time—with the parsons and the police eliminated.
On women: History teems with accounts of big men—genius, talent—of the he-critters, but the women go unmentioned. Yet how much they deserve!
On money: God help our liberties when money has finally got our institutions in its clutch.
On dirt: The American people wash too much. . . . They like nice white hands, men and women. They are too much disturbed by dirt. They need the open air, coarse work—physical tasks: something to do away from the washstand and the bathtub.
