Mark Twain Quotes

Ideally a book would have no order in it, and the reader would have to discover his own.

I used to comfort myself with the idea of a book with serrated, detachable pages, so that you could read the thing the way it came and then shuffle the pages, like a giant deck of cards, and read the book in an entirely different order. It would be a different book, wouldn't it? It would be one of infinite books.

I want my readers to find their own way.

I don't like to read novels where the novelist tells me what to think about the situation and the characters. I prefer to discover for myself.

Instead of taking the reader by the hand and running him down the hill, I want to lead him into a house of many rooms, and leave him alone in each of them.

I would hope that people, no matter what age, would find something to identify with in my books, pick one up and experience a personal sense of discovery. That's great. But for them, not for me.

So I started out for God knows where. I guess I'll know when I get there.

My last page is always latent in my first; but the intervening windings of the way become clear only as I write.

I swim in a shaft of light, upside down, and I can see myself clearly, through and through, from every angle. Perhaps I stand on the brink of a great discovery.

Keeping a journal has taught me that there is not so much new in your life as you sometimes think. When you re-read your journal you find out that your latest discovery is something you already found out five years ago. Still, it is true that one penetrates deeper and deeper into the same ideas and the same experiences.

Writing is always a voyage of discovery.

Maybe you could be a great writer - maybe even good enough to write a book or articles in a newspaper - but you might not know it until you write that English paper - that English class paper that's assigned to you.

Winston, I don't know what I want, but I want you to go out and get it. When I see it, I'll know if it's what I thought I wanted. (Quoting a photography client.)

If there is one door in the castle you have been told not to go through, you must. Otherwise, you'll just be rearranging furniture in rooms you've already been in.

I was given a small camera as a wedding gift from a very dear friend. My first pictures were taken on my honeymoon. As soon as I became familiar with the camera, I was intrigued with the possibilities of expression it offered. It was like a discovery for me.

Language is a finding place, not a hiding place.

Personal experimentation is revealing, and once you get into it, immensely engaging.

We get closer to God as we get more intimately and understandingly acquainted with the things He has created. I know of nothing more inspiring than that of making discoveries for one's self.

Each moment spent searching is also a moment spent finding.

If you discovered something that made you tighten inside, you had better try to learn more about it.

It's hard to go. It's scary and lonely...and half the time you'll be wondering why the hell you're in Cincinnati or Austin or North Dakota or Mongolia or wherever your melodious little finger-plucking heinie takes you. There will be boondoggles and discombobulated days, freaked-out nights and metaphorical flat tires. But it will be soul-smashingly beautiful... It will open up your life.

Writing, like life itself, is a voyage of discovery. The adventure is a metaphysical one: it is a way of approaching life indirectly, of acquiring a total rather than a partial view of the universe. The writer lives between the upper and lower worlds: he takes the path in order eventually to become the path himself.

All education is self-discovery.

Something in me knows where I’m going, and - well, painting is a state of being. ... Painting is self-discovery. Every good artist paints what he is.