Thomas Bailey Aldrich

"What is more cheerful, now, in the fall of the year, than an open-wood-fire? Do you hear those little chirps and twitters coming out of that piece of apple-wood? Those are the ghosts of the robins and…"

"Books that have become classics—books that have had their day and now get more praise than perusal—always remind me of venerable colonels and majors and captains who, having reached the age limit, fin…"

"Humor is a delicate shrub, with the passing hectic flush of its time. The current-topic variety is especially subject to early frosts, as is also the dialectic species."

"My father invested his money so securely in the banking business that he was never able to get any of it out again."

"There is always a heavy demand for fresh mediocrity. In every generation the least cultivated taste has the largest appetite."

"Here is woe, a self and not the mask of woe."

"My dear Mr. Morse: It was very pleasant to me to get a letter from you the other day. Perhaps I should have found it pleasanter if I had been able to decipher it. I don't think that I mastered anythin…"

"A man is known by the company his mind keeps."