If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl. – H.L. Mencken
The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not so much a war as an endless standing in line. – H.L. Mencken
The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly greater than that of any other animal. – H.L. Mencken
Unquestionably, there is progress. The average American now pays out twice as much in taxes as he formerly got in wages. – H.L. Mencken
The weathercocks on spires and housetops were mysterious with hints of stormy wind, and pointed, like so many ghostly fingers, out to dangerous seas, where fragments of great wrecks were drifting, perhaps, and helpless men were rocked upon them into a sleep as deep as the unfathomable waters. – Charles Dickens, Dealings with the Firm of Dombey and Son