“I was born in the city of Baltimore about the middle of the year 1875. My father was a well-to-do citizen of that city, and my mother was a very beautiful woman. I was an only child.”

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

“There is no friend as loyal as a book.”

“The only demand I make of my reader is that he should devote his whole life to reading my works.”