"I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity."

"If you determine to abandon me — here take I my farewell — Neglected — I will be doubly ambitious, & the world shall hear of the son whom you have thought unworthy of your notice."

"Whether people grow fat by joking, or whether there is something in fat itself which predisposes to a joke, I have never been quite able to determine..."

"Of puns it has been said that those who most dislike them are those who are least able to utter them."

"The most 'popular,' the most 'successful' writers among us, (for a brief period, at least) are, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, persons of mere address, perseverance, effrontery—in a word, busy-bo…"